The Department of Health and Human Services is losing about a quarter of its workforce. News4’s Aimee Cho explains who’s affected, the programs at stake and what it means for you.
The Department of Health and Human Services said Thursday it plans to cut 10,000 full-time jobs across several agencies, as part of a broader effort by the Trump administration to restructure many parts of the federal government.
The cuts, part of the White House’s “reduction in force” plan, were expected to effectively shutter or downsize multiple departments at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other health agencies, potentially jeopardizing public health efforts, NBC News reports.
HHS oversees 13 agencies, including the CDC, the Food and Drug Administration and the National Institutes of Health.
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HHS said Thursday that 28 divisions in the health department contain “redundant units,” and that the restructuring plan will consolidate them into 15 divisions.
“We will eliminate an entire alphabet soup of departments, while preserving their core functions by merging them into a new organization called the Administration for Healthy America or AHA,” HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said in a post on X.
Among the agencies set to be folded into the Administration for Healthy America include the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration and the Health Resources and Services Administration, which includes a program focused on HIV treatment.
Among the divisions being eliminated or reduced at the CDC, HHS said, are those focused on global health, domestic HIV prevention and prevention from injury, such as gun violence.
In total, the CDC will decrease its workforce by about 2,400 employees, said Andrew Nixon, a senior spokesperson for HHS. The administration will also move will also move the Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response, which manages the nation's emergency stockpile, from HHS to CDC, he said.
The administration also will also make cuts to divisions at other agencies tasked with responding to approving new drugs, providing health insurance and responding to infectious disease outbreaks.
The FDA will decrease its workforce by about 3,500 full-time employees; the NIH headcount will be reduced by 1,200 employees; and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services will lose about 300 workers.
Overall, the cuts will shrink the health department's full-time workforce from 82,000 to 62,000 when combined with its earlier layoffs.
According to a memo obtained by NBC News, employees will be notified on whether they've been laid off as early as Friday.
Nixon said the reorganization of CMS will not impact Medicare and Medicaid services, nor will it affect the timeline for the FDA's review of drugs, medical devices and food.
He added that "no additional cuts are currently planned."
Larry Levitt, executive vice president of health policy at KFF, a nonprofit group that researches health policy issues, said government agencies tend to sprawl over time and benefit from occasional reorganization, but he criticized the Trump administration's approach.
"This is not just a reorganization of HHS," he said. "It's also a slashing of the federal workforce, which will ultimately affect government services. People and health care providers may find themselves waiting longer to get help and get their questions answered, and that will cause frustration and delays in services."
An FDA employee who received notice of the agency's planned cuts Thursday morning worried that reviews of medical products including drugs and devices could be delayed, despite the administration's assurances.
"The cuts to FDA will still adversely affect our mission, it doesn't matter if they're not directly cutting reviewers," said the employee, who asked not to be identified for fear of repercussions. "We're only able to review because of a lot of back end support."
Thursday's cuts were separate from earlier attempts by government officials to fire thousands of probationary employees at the CDC and other federal agencies. Two federal judges have since ordered the temporary reinstatement of many of those affected workers.
Leadership at the CDC was given notice of the plans Wednesday and were told to expect an announcement Thursday or Friday, according to an agency worker who was not authorized to speak on the matter.
Federal health officials had previously said they planned to shift responsibilities from some eliminated departments to other parts of HHS.
For example, the Trump administration was considering a plan to move the responsibilities of the CDC’s Division of HIV Prevention over to the Health Resources and Services Administration, which does its own HIV work under The Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program.
However, HRSA is primarily focused on the treatment of HIV rather than preventing it, leaving some HIV advocates concerned it could drive back progress on prevention.
It was unclear Thursday whether that was still the administration's plan. A spokesperson for HHS did not immediately respond to a request for additional comment.
Much of the responsibility for the newly downsized agencies at the CDC will likely be left to Susan Monarez, Trump’s pick to lead the agency and its current acting director.
Earlier this month, The Associated Press reported that five CDC division leaders resigned as the agency prepared for cuts.
On Tuesday, the Senate confirmed Dr. Marty Makary, a pancreatic surgeon at Johns Hopkins University, to lead the FDA and Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, a Stanford University professor of medicine to lead the NIH.
A senate committee Tuesday voted to advance former surgeon and TV personality Dr. Mehmet Oz's nomination to lead the CMS.
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