A few days ago, Robert F. Kennedy Junior, Minister of Health, in a media tour to defend his decision to get rid of thousands of workers his ministry.
It was announced last week’s plan to reduce 10,000 jobs, in addition to an estimated 10,000 jobs that were reduced through retirement and acquisitions in the first weeks of the Trump administration.
Mr. Kennedy described the Department of Health and Humanitarian Services as “the largest agency in the government, twice the size of the Pentagon, 1.9 trillion dollars”, during an interview with Newsnation. He added that the administration did little to improve the health of Americans, “with all the money that was thrown, with all the employees who were brought.”
HHS spends more than the Ministry of Defense, which has an estimated budget of about $ 850 billion. But according to many budget experts, the vast majority of the HHS budget of $ 1.8 trillion does not spend on its employees.
Federal health agencies at the Federal Health Agencies represents a small part of their budget – less than 1 percent, according to three budget experts. This includes the food and drug department employees, centers of control and prevention control, the National Institutes of Health and others.
The vast majority of money is spent through medical care, or for health care for people over 65 years old, or through medicaid, for low -income persons. These funds liquidate hospitals, clinics, elderly care homes, dialysis centers, pharmaceutical companies, medical devices and special insurance plans.
Melinda Ponteen, professor of health policy and economics at Johns Hopkins University, said the costs of HHS employees worth $ 17.6 billion ranging from less than 1 percent of the management budget, and rose with total spending.
She said: “I think most people will be surprised by what is a small share of health and humanitarian services for employees, both their wages, compensation and benefits,” noting that it is logical in the context of spending the agency on care.
Bobby Kojan, chief manager of federal budget policy at the American Progress Center, a research tank that tends to the left, said that Mr. Kennedy’s framing was “incredibly misleading.”
“He will leave someone who has a very wrong understanding of what is really going on,” said Mr. Kojan. “The only story of what is going on in HHS is that we have a significant increase in the elderly population.”
A HHS spokesman said the workforce discounts aimed at reducing $ 1.8 billion annually in federal spending, and that the amount is important.
The administration of children and families, another agency within HHS, spends billions of dollars on services for the public. Head Start, Resil Care programs, temporary assistance to needy families, formerly known as luxury and care homes for unaccompanied minors from other countries.
Chris Towner, director of politics at the responsible Federal Budget Committee, made his own account, and also concluded that the costs of HHS staff seem shy of 1 percent of the administration’s spending. He said the number may be slightly higher, given the number of workers in the Health Agency who get advanced degrees.
To date, the Trump administration has talked about fraud in the federal government over and over again – although it is not the type that has been a long -term target in Congress. Legislators have repeatedly sparked the idea of retreating in the Medicare’s insurance plans, which have been estimated to Medicare Over By dozens of billions From dollars per year.