DOGE has cut the Department of Health and Human Services so aggressively that even the department’s secretary has had trouble keeping up.
“I’m not familiar with those cuts,” Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said last week in a CBS interview when pressed about the billions of dollars promised to state health agencies that were rescinded by his agency and touted by DOGE as “savings.” Kennedy also demurred on a question about how, exactly, DOGE decides which programs are worthy of being cut.
“They have a very, very sophisticated group of people, and they have very sophisticated systems for detecting fraud, waste and abuse,” Kennedy said.
DOGE’s sweeping actions and the health secretary’s professed lack of knowledge about cuts within his own agency showcase just how unilaterally the administration’s largely faceless cost-cutting initiative has been able to act — giving cover to leaders like Kennedy who are able to plead ignorance when pressed about specifics.
At the end of March, HHS pulled billions in funding for state health agencies, substance abuse prevention and pandemic prevention research. It represents the single largest DOGE cut to a domestic program anywhere in the government to date.
The cuts have arrived so rapidly and have been so wide-ranging — touching every state and hundreds of institutions — that lawmakers, health officials and Kennedy himself have said that they are still working on understanding their scope. The department is in the process of shedding over 20,000 employees, and billions of dollars earmarked for health efforts have been rescinded.
Some Republican lawmakers NOTUS spoke with also said they were in the dark about many of the changes to HHS under DOGE and Kennedy.
DOGE caucus co-chair Aaron Bean said he would “have to look at” the cuts at HHS because he “hadn’t seen them.”
“I’m not prepared to speak on the cuts of which you refer,” Bean said. “But I do know this: We have a government we can’t afford, and so we have to make reductions. It’s always painful making changes or whatnot, so I’m gonna take a look at ’em.”
Rep. Dan Newhouse, a Republican from Washington, also said he was unfamiliar with the details of the DOGE cuts.
“Twenty thousand?” he said after NOTUS asked about personnel cuts. “I haven’t had a chance to look at those. I hope they’re prioritizing the important work that the agency does.”
Rep. Carlos Gimenez wouldn’t say if he approved of Kennedy’s leadership thus far (“We’ll see, it’s too early”) but that he supported the broader effort.
“Every single agency needs to be re-evaluated, and so that’s just a process that all corporations go through, and frankly, most governments should go through.”
As of Monday morning, DOGE is touting the cancellation of around $16 billion in promised HHS contracts and grants spread across every state and hundreds of universities. That massive sum accounts for around half of DOGE’s line item savings, setting aside U.S. Agency for International Development funding.
Last month, National Institutes of Health employees were handed down spreadsheets with a color-coded listing of contracts identified by DOGE for employees to terminate — giving them little time to carry out the directives and little room to object to the cuts. DOGE staffers have also sought to fire workers at the agency who were away from their desks, employees told NOTUS.
One HHS employee said that DOGE’s work and Kennedy’s restructuring are creating a culture of fear and uncertainty inside the agency.
“Everyone is constantly stressed. We’re all always waiting for the next shoe to drop,” the employee told NOTUS. “Part of the reason people chose to work for the government was the stability and serving the country. Now that’s just gone.”
Democrats in Congress assailed the sweeping cuts to programs and personnel as a threat to Americans’ health.
“It’s horrible,” physician and Rep. Raul Ruiz said. “It’s gonna put our families, our communities at risk, not only in our confidence in the Food and Drug Administration to keep our food and medication safe, but also in our ability to rapidly innovate for life-saving biotechnology, as well as responding to public health emergencies.
“Cutting the staff that work on vaccines during a measles outbreak in the wake of a pandemic that killed millions of people is absurd,” Ruiz said.
“It’s a rotten thing to do,” Rep. Jim McGovern told NOTUS. “They’re prioritizing tax cuts for billionaires over the health and well-being of the people in this country.”
DOGE’s cuts haven’t just affected programs the administration views as being tied to diversity, equity and inclusion efforts — they’ve also hit direct funding for cancer research, state mental health services and a host of other programs.
“As we sift through there, there will be things that we preserve and things that need to go by the wayside, but it’s about prioritizing tax dollars, because it all comes from the work of the people,” Republican Rep. Doug LaMalfa said.
Even basic public-facing information is being remade in Trumpy fashion.
For years, HHS hosted the COVID.gov website as a comprehensive source of information for updating health guidelines, treatment and testing guidance, and information “for people with certain medical conditions, including where to get preventative treatment.”
That changed last week. The site no longer exists, and the web address instead redirects to an official White House page that depicts Donald Trump standing between the words “LAB LEAK” above the subheadline “The True Origins of Covid-19.”
—
Mark Alfred and Margaret Manto are NOTUS reporters and Allbritton Journalism Institute fellows.