Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. Testifies About Health Programs Budget

By: Ellen Kuo
Thursday, June 26, 2025
Chair Buddy Carter of the House Energy and Commerce Health Subcommittee held a hearing with the Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. to examine the department’s fiscal year (FY) 2026 budget. He spoke about keeping decorum during the hearing, the need to improve the health of Americans, and the reduction of unnecessary animal suffering in his opening statement.

Ranking Member Diana DeGette focused her remarks on the new antivirals for curing Hepatitis C and how vaccines have saved 154 million lives globally since 1974, driven by federal funding for science. She also cited frozen grants, the politicization of science, and additional red tape being added to the federal agency process, which has negatively impacted the scientific enterprise and the removal of experts from agencies. She stated that the HHS budget calls for a 40 percent decrease in funding for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for FY 2026 and that this budget would cost lives.

Representative DeGette held up a stack of unanswered letters to the secretary, which she had added to the hearing record, and talked about the June 16 federal court Judge Young decision that NIH grant terminations were illegal and wanted his commitment to follow the decision. She also wanted to know if he had a hand in the NIH reduction in force of 10,000 employees, and he said he approved the policy. People who were terminated were involved in the administration and were redundant. However, he has brought 220 people back to NIH because NIH could not perform its work. According to Kennedy, there were nine offices of women’s health, eight offices for minority health, forty procurement departments, 41 Chief Information Officers, 1400 external affairs staff, nine human resources departments, eight finance departments, and 42 maternal health programs where HHS is working to consolidate those. The reduction in force was intended to go back to pre-Biden era staffing. He promised a transformed American health system within the next four years using AI and the new staff he has attracted.

Chair Brett Guthrie of the House Energy and Commerce Committee also spoke, praising the administration for challenging the status quo and the ballooning budget of HHS. He wanted to see innovation being embraced in healthcare and said that communication and collaboration with Congress are essential for lasting success. 

Full committee ranking member Frank Pallone’s opening statement focused on the lack of justifications for HHS’s recent actions, undermining of vaccines, and advancing a dangerous pseudo-science agenda. Pallone also cited the more than 340 top scientists at NIH who signed a letter to the NIH Director objecting to actions taken under this administration that have resulted in waste and inefficiencies and wants to see the Secretary reappear before this panel again. Pallone also said he admired members of the Kennedy family and did not say these things out of dislike for the secretary.  He also felt the science was not on Kennedy’s side, and there was a radical obstruction of congressional oversight by the secretary. Kennedy said he had received thousands of letters, but Pallone wanted a date of when the secretary would respond to his letters, which Kennedy would not provide. Kennedy also impugned Pallone’s reputation, and Chair Carter forced him to take back his words, which he did.

Kennedy said his budget does more with less and reflects compassion and responsibility. The U.S. spends $4.5 trillion on healthcare annually, and there is something structurally wrong with our approach. He said exploding debt is also a social determinant of health. HHS was cutting risky NIH research such as gain of function and research based on radical ideology is taking place. Kennedy said the U.S. is the sickest country in the world because of our chronic disease epidemic, and throwing money at HHS does not work. Few of the studies at NIH were focused on chronic disease and NIH should be telling us the impact of food dyes, seed oils, pesticides, and microplastics on our children’s health. He said this is the first time in 30 years NIH would be returned to evidenced based science.

Members had many questions for Kennedy. Representative Raul Ruiz questioned the secretary and made it clear that the Make America Healthy Again commission report contained mischaracterizations and incorrect citations while holding up the report with a giant “F” marked on it. Ruiz said this report has already caused distrust. Representative Morgan Griffith wanted to see flexibilities for the compassionate use at the Food and Drug Administration, especially for Huntington’s disease and encouraged the secretary to give answers to his Democratic colleagues. Representative Debbie Dingell asked Kennedy about grants that had been cut and was urged to contact him directly to follow up on those. Dingell also invited the secretary to visit the University of Michigan to talk to the scientists working on various types of cancer research studies that have been frozen. Representative Bilirakis said 95 percent of rare diseases have no cures or treatments and wanted to know what HHS was doing to further accelerate lifesaving treatments. Representative Dan Crenshaw wanted to know about the use of psychedelics for mental health care for patients with no other alternatives. Representative Nanette Barragan focused on budget cuts to Alzheimer’s research at NIH and wanted Kennedy’s commitment to keep Alzheimer’s research centers open. Representative Kim Schrier, a pediatrician, gave examples of how she has seen babies and children who had vaccine preventable diseases suffer tremendously and objected to his actions of firing all seventeen members of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices. Representative Troy Balderson wanted to know about the upcoming HHS rollout encouraging all people to use wearables to monitor their health, which Kennedy said he was investigating to determine how to pay for this effort.