US Department of Health And Human Services Aligns With Trump's Executive Order, To Cut 10K Jobs, Save $1.8 Billion

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) unveiled a sweeping restructuring plan on Thursday that aims to cut costs, streamline operations and refocus priorities.

The changes, aligned with President Donald Trump’s executive order on government efficiency, will reduce the agency's workforce, consolidate divisions and emphasize efforts to combat chronic illness.

The restructuring will reduce the HHS workforce by 10,000 full-time employees, leading to annual savings of $1.8 billion.

Through early retirements and other initiatives, the total number of employees will shrink from 82,000 to 62,000.

To improve efficiency, HHS will consolidate its 28 divisions into 15, eliminating redundancies and centralizing core functions such as Human Resources, Information Technology, Procurement, External Affairs, and Policy. Additionally, regional offices will be reduced from 10 to 5.

"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," HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said in a statement. "This department will do more — a lot more — at a lower cost to the taxpayer."

A key component of the reorganization is the creation of the Administration for a Healthy America (AHA), which will integrate several existing agencies, including the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health, the Health Resources and Services Administration, and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.

AHA will focus on primary care, maternal and child health, mental health, environmental health and HIV/AIDS, particularly for low-income communities.

The restructuring will also transfer the Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Additionally, HHS will establish a new assistant secretary for Enforcement to oversee fraud prevention in federal health programs.

The move comes after HHS canceled funding for multiple studies on vaccines and treatments for combating COVID-19 and other potential pandemic-causing pathogens.

The New York Times, citing an NIH internal document, highlighted the end of the COVID-19 pandemic as the reason for halting the research.

However, many of these studies focused on preventing future outbreaks of other dangerous viruses. Nine of the canceled grants supported research centers working on antiviral drugs for high-risk pathogens that could trigger new pandemics.

Describing all the research as COVID-related is "a complete inaccuracy and simply a way to defund infectious disease research," the New York Times report added, citing an official.

Kennedy had said the NIH is too focused on infectious diseases, the official noted.

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