U.S. Health Dept Downsizing: The Plan to Cut 10,000 Federal Jobs Begins

U.S. HEALTH DEPT DOWNSIZING: THE PLAN TO CUT 10,000 FEDERAL JOBS BEGINS

By Allison Kirschbaum

With some job cuts happening in the past months, some heads of departments are also doing the same. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is planning federal job cuts across different departments with an estimated 10,000 full-time employees.

The said job cuts are in addition to the 10,000 employees who left the Health and Human Services Department through a voluntary separation pay when President Donald Trump started his term.

Job Cuts at the U.S. Health Department

When Trump took office, about 10,000 employees left the Health and Human Services Department with the voluntary separation offer.

With the combined number of employees, the federal health department will lose about a quarter of its employees, leaving it with 62,000 employees.

“We aren’t just reducing bureaucratic sprawl. We are realigning the organization with its core mission and our new priorities in reversing the chronic disease epidemic,” Kennedy said. “This department will do more – a lot more – at a lower cost to the taxpayer.”

HHS makes sure of vaccines and other medicines, scientific research, public health infrastructure, pandemic preparedness, and food and tobacco products, with it being a $1.7 trillion agency.

The jobs that will be cut are those responsible for offering insurance to the poorest Americans, approving new drugs, and responding to disease outbreaks.

With the federal job cuts being made, it is expected to save about $1.8 billion per year. The federal government spent roughly $6.8 trillion in fiscal 2024.

What Else Are They Planning to Cut?

Kennedy is restructuring what to cut, and he is consolidating the department’s 28 current divisions into 15 new ones.

HHS said it will “centralize core functions” such as human resources, information technology, procurement, external affairs, and policy.

The following are the employees that the Trump administration is planning to cut:

3,500 full-time employees from the Food and Drug Administration, or about 19% of its workforce
2,400 workers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or roughly 18% of its staff
1,200 employees from the National Institutes of Health, or about 6% of its workforce
300 workers from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, or roughly 4% of its employees

With the restructuring, a new subdivision called the Administration for a Healthy America will combine offices in HHS that will address addiction, toxic substances, mental health, and occupational safety.

This would be only one central office, including the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health, Health Resources and Services Administration, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, and the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health.

What Could be the Effect on Public Health Services?

Sen. Ron Wyden, a Democrat from Oregon, said in a statement Thursday that “American families are going to be hurt by layoffs and closures of this magnitude, full stop.”

Some workers think that the federal job cuts would certainly have an effect on the healthcare system within a few years. With fewer staff, funded programs could face longer waiting times. It would make it hard for Americans to receive care. There are countless effects along the way, but one is that hospitals might face budget constraints that could lead to declining a patient’s quality of care.

Genevieve Kanter, associate professor of public policy at the University of Southern California, expressed her thoughts on combining the departments.

“It’s not obvious that there’s an operational reason for combining them because obviously regulating food additives is very different from regulating fluoride in the water supply, addressing mental health needs, encouraging exercise among children, which are all sort of underneath that chronic diseases rubric.”

What Do the Employees Say?

According to one HHS employee, the workers haven’t been notified yet if they are going to be affected by the federal job cuts.

"I cannot really comprehend why you fired subject matter experts the government needs so badly," — said a former FDA worker.

Some people in position have also expressed their concern with the continuous federal job cuts, “As a country, I think this gutting of what they’ve done is going to impact our country for decades,” said Jesse Heffernan, a former behavioral health advisor for a regional Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) office.

With the continuous federal job cuts, there’s a lot of uncertainty for some employees, making them fear what’s to come next.

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