{"id":1055,"date":"2025-05-07T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-05-07T09:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.walkwithremar.com\/?p=1055"},"modified":"2025-05-09T19:22:34","modified_gmt":"2025-05-09T19:22:34","slug":"trump-policies-at-odds-with-make-america-healthy-again-push","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.walkwithremar.com\/index.php\/2025\/05\/07\/trump-policies-at-odds-with-make-america-healthy-again-push\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump Policies at Odds With \u2018Make America Healthy Again\u2019 Push"},"content":{"rendered":"

In his March address to Congress, President Donald Trump honored a Texas boy diagnosed with brain cancer. Amid bipartisan applause, he vowed to drive down childhood cancer rates<\/a> through his \u201cMake America Healthy Again\u201d initiative.<\/p>\n

A few days later, the administration quietly dropped a lawsuit<\/a> to cut emissions from a Louisiana chemical plant linked to cancer.<\/p>\n

At first glance, Trump appears to have fully embraced the MAHA movement championed by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. From proclaiming in his congressional speech a goal to \u201cget toxins out of our environment\u201d to launching a new commission to study cancer and other ailments, Trump has vowed to end what he calls an epidemic of chronic disease.<\/p>\n

But even as he extols MAHA, Trump has unleashed a slew of policies likely to make Americans less healthy. He\u2019s slashing 20,000 full time positions<\/a> from HHS and cutting more than $4 billion in indirect costs related to health research grants, including studies into treatment for Alzheimer\u2019s and cancer. He also supported a GOP plan likely to kneecap Medicaid, a joint federal-state program that covers about 72 million Americans.<\/p>\n

The contradictions raise doubts about the sincerity of Trump\u2019s support for the MAHA agenda and his administration\u2019s commitment to making a dent in chronic disease \u2014 conditions that afflict about 133 million Americans and account for roughly 90% of the $4.5 trillion<\/a> spent annually in the U.S. on health care.<\/p>\n

The administration\u2019s attention to chronic disease is also notable for its lack of focus on expanding health insurance. Research shows people with coverage<\/a> have lower death rates; insurance provides free or low-cost preventive care that can help manage chronic disease and reduce risks of serious complications.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe layoffs at HHS, cuts to Medicaid, and reduction in research could all end up resulting in less healthy Americans,\u201d said Larry Levitt, executive vice president for health policy at KFF. \u201cThey\u2019re talking about getting at the root causes of chronic disease. Less research and protections will undermine that goal.\u201d KFF is a health information nonprofit that includes KFF Health News.<\/p>\n

HHS leaders have said that they focused personnel cuts at agencies on redundant or unnecessary administrative positions. The administration has said the job cuts will save money and make HHS more responsive.<\/p>\n

\u201cStreamlining bureaucracy and eliminating redundancies is how we deliver on the mission of Making America Healthy Again \u2014 not by preserving a bloated system that\u2019s failed to improve outcomes despite record spending,\u201d HHS spokesperson Vianca Rodriguez Feliciano said in an email.<\/p>\n

Public health advocates say the staffing cuts run counter to the promise of a MAHA agenda dedicated to reducing chronic disease.<\/p>\n

\u201cHHS declared that their mission is to Make America Healthy Again,\u201d said Sharon Gilmartin, executive director of Safe States Alliance, on a press call. The alliance is a nonprofit focused on preventing injury and violence. \u201cHow can we do that when the people who have spent decades of their life combating the health issues of our nation are being tossed out with no notice?\u201d<\/p>\n

The HHS workforce reductions decimated divisions focused on chronic disease.<\/p>\n

Gone is most of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention\u2019s population health division, which conducted research and developed public health programs on chronic disease. Gone, too, are staffers at the National Institutes of Health who focused on Alzheimer\u2019s research. After HHS staffers working on Alzheimer\u2019s projects were put on administrative leave, the Alzheimer\u2019s Association sounded the alarm about the cuts, saying in an April 1 statement<\/a> that the reductions \u201ccould cause irreversible damage.\u201d<\/p>\n

And gone is the CDC\u2019s Office on Smoking and Health<\/a>, which worked to protect the public from the harmful effects of tobacco use. The administration also gutted the FDA\u2019s Center for Tobacco Products, which enforces advertising restrictions. Tobacco use is the leading preventable cause of disease, disability, and death in the country.<\/p>\n

\u201cCuts to CDC and FDA tobacco control programs are devastating,\u201d Tom Frieden, who served as director of the CDC from 2009 to 2017, said April 18<\/a> on the social media platform Bluesky.<\/p>\n

According to administration fact sheets and press releases, the staffing cuts will save $1.8 billion a year and shrink HHS\u2019 workforce from 82,000 to 62,000 full-time employees. HHS will be retooled to focus on \u201csafe, wholesome food, clean water, and the elimination of environmental toxins,\u201d according to a March 27 press statement<\/a>. The restructuring will improve Americans\u2019 experience with HHS by making the agency more responsive and efficient, the statement said.<\/p>\n

Roger Severino, a lawyer who led the HHS Office for Civil Rights during the previous Trump administration, said the job cuts are necessary because the HHS budget has grown while American health has declined.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you want to Make America Healthy Again, you have to make HHS healthy again. You have to trim the bureaucratic fat,\u201d said Severino, who is now vice president of domestic policy at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative policy group. \u201cWe haven\u2019t seen chronic disease go down or obesity go down, while autism rates are up. If this were a private company, it would have gone bankrupt years ago.\u201d<\/p>\n

But many public health experts question how the federal government will be able to respond to existing problems, as well as new health issues, with fewer employees and resources.<\/p>\n

Infectious diseases are one area of concern.<\/p>\n

Trump, on the first day of his second term in office, withdrew the nation from the World Health Organization, which detects, monitors, and responds to emerging health threats. The U.S. has been the largest financial contributor to the organization.<\/p>\n

Without membership, the U.S. may remain in the dark if the WHO identifies an emerging threat<\/a> that could ultimately spread and become global. Spillover can happen: In 2014, an Ebola outbreak in West Africa led to 11 reported cases in the U.S. The WHO played a central role in developing infection-prevention protocols and provided logistical support to affected countries.<\/p>\n

The evisceration of the U.S. Agency for International Development could also leave the nation more vulnerable because the agency worked with countries such as Vietnam on early detection of diseases including bird flu. The agency typically would have aided in the response to a current Ebola outbreak in Uganda, providing support that doctors say helped prevent spread in past outbreaks.<\/p>\n

The staffing reductions and frozen or canceled grants are having an immediate impact on the ability to respond to infectious outbreaks. Right now, for instance, Texas is in the throes of a measles outbreak, with more than 500 confirmed cases.<\/p>\n

But the administration\u2019s funding cuts forced the Dallas County health department to lay off 11 full-time workers and 10 part-time staffers responsible for responding to such outbreaks, Philip Huang, director and health authority for the Dallas County Health and Human Services Department, said at a press event.<\/p>\n

The administration has also imperiled ongoing research, including studies and trials related to chronic disease.<\/p>\n

Trump ended hundreds of research projects at the National Institutes of Health totaling more than $2 billion, including projects on HIV prevention drugs and Alzheimer\u2019s disease research.<\/p>\n

\u201cPatients enrolled in NIH studies led by Plaintiffs face abrupt cancellations of treatment in which they have invested months of time with no explanation or plan for how to mitigate the harm,\u201d according to a federal lawsuit<\/a> filed in Massachusetts by scientists and researchers.<\/p>\n

The research being cut could potentially have supported Trump\u2019s pledge, when he honored the boy with brain cancer, to drive down rates of the disease. In the weeks since, however, Trump\u2019s administration announced plans to weaken<\/a> automobile tailpipe emission standards. Trump slashed more than 400 grants<\/a> to Columbia University, including millions earmarked for a cancer center.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s making people sicker again. Now that would be a more honest bumper sticker,\u201d said Leslie Dach, a former Obama administration official who is the executive chair of Protect Our Care, which advocates for the Affordable Care Act. \u201cThey\u2019re stopping research on vaccines and gutting health care programs that keep 100 million Americans healthy. It\u2019s all show. It\u2019s a bunch of junk.\u201d<\/p>\n

KFF Health News<\/a> is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF\u2014an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF<\/a>.<\/p>\n

USE OUR CONTENT<\/h3>\n

This story can be republished for free (details<\/a>).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In his March address to Congress, President Donald Trump honored a Texas boy diagnosed with brain cancer. Amid bipartisan applause, he vowed to drive down childhood cancer rates through his \u201cMake America Healthy Again\u201d initiative. A few days later, the administration quietly dropped a lawsuit to cut emissions from a Louisiana chemical plant linked to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1057,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1055","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health-care"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.walkwithremar.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1055","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.walkwithremar.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.walkwithremar.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.walkwithremar.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.walkwithremar.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1055"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.walkwithremar.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1055\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1056,"href":"http:\/\/www.walkwithremar.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1055\/revisions\/1056"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.walkwithremar.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1057"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.walkwithremar.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1055"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.walkwithremar.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1055"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.walkwithremar.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1055"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}