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During a House Energy Committee hearing last week, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. talked about his goals for the agency.

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Transcript
00:00Thank you, Chairman Carter, and thank you, Vice Chairman Dunn, thank you,
00:12Ranking Member DeGette, and members of the committee. I'm honored to appear before you
00:18today to present the Department of Health and Human Services Fiscal Year Budget for 2026.
00:24Debilitating disease, contaminated food, toxic environments, addiction, mental illness affect
00:32families across every race, class, and political belief. When my team and I took the helm at HHS,
00:40we set out with clear goals. First, to make America healthy again with a special focus
00:46on ending chronic disease epidemic. Second, we committed to delivering more efficient,
00:52responsive, and effective service to over 100 million Americans who rely on Medicare,
00:57Medicaid, and other HHS programs. Third, to achieve these goals while cutting costs for taxpayers,
01:05we intend to do more, a lot more, with less. The budget I'm presenting today supports these
01:12goals and reflects two enduring American values, compassion and responsibility.
01:18I invite the committee to unite around these ideals with me. The United States remains the sickest
01:27developed nation, and yet we spend $4.5 trillion annually on healthcare, two to three times more per
01:34capita to comparable nations. Clearly, something is structurally wrong with our approach. Furthermore,
01:44healthcare costs are steadily increasing at a rate of 2% greater than the economy. This is unsustainable.
01:51If we don't staunch this trend, we will ransom our children to bankruptcy, servitude, and disastrous
01:58health consequences. Yes, an exploding debt is a social determinant of health.
02:05We won't solve this problem by throwing more money at it. We must spend smarter. We will shift funding away
02:12from bureaucracy toward direct impact. Some things at HHS will not change. We will preserve the legacy
02:19programs like Medicare and Medicaid as the foundation of the Maha Agenda. Vulnerable populations, seniors,
02:29and veterans deserve consistent access to care, and I will make sure they receive it.
02:34Today, 83 million Americans, urban and rural, lack adequate access to primary care physicians.
02:43We will prioritize these families, especially Native Americans and Alaskan communities.
02:49We will protect IHS funding, streamline its operations, and give the tribes more autonomy in managing their
02:57resources. Let me be clear. We intend to make the Trump HHS not only the most effective, but also
03:05the most compassionate in U.S. history. While our official budget statement outlines many priorities,
03:13I want to highlight a few. First, we will consolidate programs to better tackle mental health and addiction.
03:20These issues now rival chronic disease and their impact. The HHS will aggressively combat the opioid crisis,
03:28especially the spread of synthetic drugs like fentanyl. We will empower state, local, and tribal leaders to
03:35create effective solutions. Second, we will address nutrition, physical activity, and healthy lifestyles. The
03:43President's budget requests $94 billion in discretionary funds to support these priorities, including the
03:50Administration for a Healthy America. AHA will oversee initiatives such as Prevention Innovation Program,
03:59which targets chronic disease and childhood obesity through access to nutrition service and physical
04:07activity and reducing dependence on medication. Third, we will equip FDA to expand its food safety
04:15efforts through research, regulation, inspection, and education to remove harmful chemicals from food and
04:23packaging and explore how to close the generally recognized as safe with a grass loophole. Fourth,
04:31we will fund cutting-edge research at the NIH while cutting risky or non-essential studies. That includes ending
04:38gain-of-function experiments and research based upon radical gender ideology. At the CDC, we will return to
04:46core missions, tracking diseases, investigating outbreaks, and sustaining public health infrastructure
04:54while cutting waste. Fifth, we will eliminate DEI funding and redirect resources toward real poverty reduction.
05:03We will move beyond lip service to communities of color and take meaningful action to address their needs. Sixth, we will
05:11strengthen cyber security and health IT. The AI revolution has arrived and we are using this technology
05:18already at HHS to manage healthcare data more efficiently and securely and to increase the speed of drug approvals.
05:29Finally, we will rebuild public trust. Trusts that eroded through the years of industry capture,
05:35waste, and misplaced priorities. We will launch a new era of transparency and public service,
05:42creating an honest, science-driven HHS that answers to the President, to Congress, and the American people.
05:49I look forward to working with Congress to pursue this mission together as a bipartisan cause. Let's work
05:56side-by-side to make America healthy again. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, the gentleman.

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