Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced that he was restructuring HHS to be more efficient by merging some of its divisions and terminating about 10,000 employees.
The restructuring will save taxpayers $1.8 billion per year.
HHS’s reorganization will “implement the new HHS priority of ending America’s epidemic of chronic illness by focusing on safe, wholesome food, clean water, and the elimination of environmental toxins,” a press release explains.
The department’s restructuring involves creating the Administration for a Healthy America (AHA), which will blend the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health (OASH), Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR), and National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) into one entity.
HHS will further merge the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation (ASPE) with the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) to create the Office of Strategy to inform policies.
Medicare, Medicaid, and other services will remain.
“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 in a statement. “This Department will do more – a lot more – at a lower cost to the taxpayer.”
The HHS secretary explained in a video statement that the department’s budget under the Biden administration “increased by 38% and its staffing increased by 17%.”
As the department has grown, so have the rates of cancer and chronic disease, Kennedy said.
“We are going to streamline our agency and eliminate the redundancies, and invite everyone to align behind a simple, bold mission,” he declared.
