Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Wednesday testified at two different Congressional hearings and defended President Trump’s request to slash $33 billion for health programs in fiscal year 2026. But members of both committees were more interested in learning about the dismantling of health programs and firing thousands of employees before and since he became secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) in February.
During his opening remarks before the House Committee on Appropriations in the morning and the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee in the afternoon, Kennedy said that Trump’s fiscal year 2026 budget invests in methods to address chronic disease, promotes nutrition, food and drug safety, health care innovation, and focuses resources on proven and effective initiative. The budget, he said, takes into consideration the fiscal challenges facing the United States and the need to redirect investments to meet the needs of a changing world.
“The FY 2026 budget request includes reforms to put health care spending on a sustainable fiscal path.”
Kennedy said HHS will preserve Medicare, Medicaid, and Head Start and ensure vulnerable populations receive consistent access to care. Consolidation of programs will allow the administration to better tackle mental health and addiction, the opioid crisis, and empower state, local, and tribal leaders to create effective solutions.
But Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), the ranking member of the House Appropriations Committee, called the budget proposal a “disgrace.” The cuts will lead to Americans dying of needless and preventable deaths, she said. DeLauro also criticized Kennedy’s decision to cut 10,000 HHS employees and consolidate departments and agencies, stating he has “destroyed everything we know about good public health.”
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She pointed to the recent gutting of personnel and programs at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response (ASPR), and Administration for Community Living (ACL).
Kennedy said the cuts made throughout HHS in the last few months addressed wasteful spending and fraud, but DeLauro pushed back against those claims. “You can make the baseless claim that you are simply reorganizing these functions of HHS all you want. It is simply a matter of fact that you cannot cut a department's budget and maintain all of its life saving programs and services.”
House representatives also pointed out that the administration is cutting the funds they appropriated. DeLauro questioned Kennedy’s decision to eliminate scores of CDC prevention programs, including HIV, tobacco, asthma, lead positioning, and gun violence. “Why on earth are these the places you are terminating for so-called waste?” she asked.
On top of the cuts already made, the FY 2026 budget proposal seeks to cut funding for health programs by $33 billion, more than 25 percent, including slashing nearly $4 billion from the CDC and $18 billion from NIH research. “These are vital institutions built up over decades that protect Americans health and the health of people around the world,” DeLauro said. “I do not believe the American people want less cancer research, fewer people tracking infectious diseases. But that is exactly what this budget will deliver.”
Asked by DeLauro why he eliminated CDCs Office of Smoking and Health, Kennedy said he was advised by his attorneys due to a court order not to discuss details about the HHS reorganization. However, he said that many of the programs that Democrats claim were cut at CDC weren’t cut at all. The programs were instead transferred to the newly established Administration for Healthy America.
Kennedy was also asked during the hearings about funding for:
Medicare Advantage: Asked whether he would focus attention on waste, fraud, and abuse in Medicare Advantage, which government watchdogs have found has received billions in overpayments, Kennedy said he does want to go after waste and abuse in the private sector. He also said that he is a member of a Medicare Advantage plan and is happy with the coverage. While it may cost more, the services are better, Kennedy said.
Indian Health Services: Congressman Mike Simpson (R-Idaho) noted that Kennedy’s opening statement indicated he wanted to maintain the level of funding for Indian Health Services, but that is a legal obligation due to treaty rights that the United States has made to Native Americans and Alaska Natives. Kennedy said that he successfully fought to exempt Indian Health services from probationary freezes, early retirement offers, and downsizing. In addition, he said that some HHS employees who lost their jobs were offered an opportunity to transfer to Indian Health Services.
Dental health: Asked about his commitment to oral health, Kennedy said he is committed to dental health, which research shows is intricately related to the health of the entire body. Kennedy said he wants HHS to conduct more studies about the issue. When Simpson, who was a practicing dentist for 22 years, asked about the FDA removing ingestible fluoride prescription drug products for children from the market, Kennedy said he has read that fluoride may prevent cavities by killing bacteria on the teeth but it can also kill intestinal bacteria important to children’s health. Simpson said that fluoride prevents cavities by making the enamel more resistant to decay, not by killing bacteria in the mouth. “If you are successful in banning fluoride, we better put a lot more money into dental education because we’re going to need a whole lot more dentists,” he said.
Vaccinations: Asked during the House Appropriations Committee hearing if he had a child today, would he vaccinate the child against measles, Kennedy, a vocal vaccine skeptic, said probably but his opinions on vaccines are irrelevant and people shouldn’t take medical advice from him. Instead, he would lay out the pros and cons about them.
Later, during the Senate HELP hearing, Senator Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) accused Kennedy of lying during his confirmation hearing in January, when he said he wouldn’t impound, divert or otherwise reduce any funding Congress appropriated for vaccination programs.
“That has not happened. You’ve done the opposite,” he said. “You canceled $12 billion in grants to the states, including my state, that are used to administer and track vaccines…Whether you know this or not, that funding is used by the states in part to be able to administer and dispense information about vaccines.”
Furthermore, Murphy said, Kennedy had promised HELP Committee Chair Sen. Bill Cassidy, M.D., (R-La.), during the confirmation hearing that the FDA would not change vaccine standards from historical norms. "But what happened? As soon as you were sworn in, you announced new standards for vaccine approvals that you proudly referred to in your own press release as a radical departure from current practice. And experts say that that departure will delay approvals.”
Murphy also said that although Kennedy has said he supports the measles vaccine, he has consistently undermined it, telling the public that the vaccine wanes quickly. “You went on the Dr. Phil show and said that the measles vaccine was never fully tested for safety. You said there's fetal debris in the measles vaccine...None of that is true…Do you understand that when you say these things about the measles vaccine, what ends up happening is less people get the vaccine?”
Kennedy said that he pledged during the confirmation hearing that he would tell the truth and be transparent. “I’m going to tell the truth about everything we know and we don’t know about vaccines,” he said, adding later, “I am not going to just tell people everything is safe and effective if I know that there are issues. I need to respect people’s intelligence.”
Addiction: Rep. Madeleine Dean (D-Pa.) expressed concern that HHS is moving the SAMHSA and other divisions into the new Administration for a Healthy America. Dean said that it essentially will shutter the agency. She worries that the country will lose progress it has made in reducing the number of people who have died due to overdose. “Help us save more lives,” she said. “Don't shift it and shaft it.”
Kennedy said HHS is not closing SAMHSA and the agency is still running 500 addiction centers. “What we want to do is we want to shift that function into a place where we're going to be able to administrate it more efficiently. That’s all,” he said.
Disparities: Rep. Bonnie M. Watson Coleman (D-N.J.) said she was angry that the administration has made it a crusade to rid the government of programs that aimed to improve the lives of Black Americans and has made moves to ban words such as Black, racial bias, minority oppression, prejudice, discrimination, disparity, and racism. Grant applications that included these words were immediately stripped. “It’s painfully clear to me that this administration that you work for is attempting to legitimize racial discrimination,” she said. “And that, sir, is a moral disgrace.”
Watson Coleman said it should not be controversial to work to fix a health care system that was not built to help minorities and doesn’t take their concerns, pain, and health seriously. For example, she said, Black women die from childbirth complications at a higher rate in the U.S. than any other high-income country. How, she asked, will eliminating minority health offices and initiatives created to look at disparities in health care make the Black population healthier?
Kennedy said that there were eight programs for minority health at HHS and the department has closed one of those offices. HHS also had 42 programs for maternal health, and it intends to close a couple of programs and consolidate them. “We’re still going to spend $1.7 billion each year,” he said. “The commitment is there. We’re just reorganizing.”
Medicaid: During the House Appropriation Committee hearing, Rep. Josh Harder, D-Calif., and Kennedy got into a heated exchange when Harder expressed concern over the 2026 budget proposal’s impact on people with Medicaid.
“About half of my district is on Medicaid, and the recent budget that is being discussed in the House right now would leave 50,000 people in my community without health insurance,” Harder said. “Do you disagree with the cuts that are being proposed for Medicaid right now?”
Kennedy said that Harder was repeating Democratic talking points and the only cuts to Medicaid are those related to fraud, waste, and abuse. Because of the Department of Government Efficiency under billionaire Elon Musk, HHS determined that there are a million people who are claiming Medicaid from multiple states, which is theft, Kennedy said, Another million people are collecting Medicaid from both the Affordable Care Act marketplace and Medicaid. The other category for cuts is for those who collect Medicaid and refuse to look for a job, he said, “Those are the only cuts being made to Medicaid,” Kennedy said.
But Harder said the residents of his districts are not getting Medicaid in another state. And the majority of his constituents on Medicaid are working and want to work.
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