'There've Been Gaps In Our Ability To Preform Our Duties': RFK Jr. Admits Layoffs Have Hurt HHS

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During a House Energy Committee hearing last week, Rep. Brett Guthrie (R-KY) asked Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. about layoffs.

Transcript

00:00The chair now recognizes the chairman of the full committee, Chairman Guthrie, for five minutes of

00:05questioning. Thank you, Mr. Secretary, over here on this end. So we talked about the reduction in

00:11force. So I'm going to ask you, I'll do three questions real quick and let you answer. So what

00:17is the status of the reduction in force or any potential reorganization? And are you able to

00:21discuss the details of this potential action or does the legal situation limit what you're able

00:27to do today? And then what does the path forward look like if the injunction is cleared?

00:32You know, with that issue now, the reduction in force are under litigation. And we're under

00:39a court order not to talk about them. So if the injunction's lifted the path forward,

00:44or can you talk about that as well? So what would happen if the path forward, if the injunction

00:49is lifted? What happened with? If the injunction is lifted, what would the path forward to be

00:56look like? If the injunction is lifted, Congressman, what was the rest of your question?

01:03What would the path forward look like? The path forward? What would be, what do you see HSS

01:11becoming if the injunction is lifted with the reduction in force in place?

01:16You know, the people who are subject to the injunction force are on administrative leave,

01:21and they will remain on administrative leave until the injunction is lifted. At that point,

01:27we will make decisions. And, you know, in some cases, there have been gaps in our ability to

01:35perform our duties. I've brought people back. I've brought 722 people back to CDC. I brought 220 people

01:45back to NIH because we were not able to perform our job. And I brought 313 people back to NIOSH for the

01:56World Trade Center, for the Cleveland office, and the Morgantown office. They were doing important work

02:01that we did not, that was critical. And, but, but the people have been terminated are people who are

02:10involved in administration. There are tremendous redundancies in my department. And I, I'll just give

02:17you a couple of examples of that. We had nine separate offices for women's health. We had eight separate

02:24office offices for minority health. We had 41 chief information officers. We have 1400 external affairs

02:32staff, 40 procurement departments using four different contracting systems, nine human resource

02:39departments, eight finance departments, 40 separate opioid programs, 42 maternal health programs. And so what we

02:49tried to do is consolidate those. And the people who were let go were people who were not involved in

02:56primary care or in, in, in delivery of care. They were redundant administrative offices that have been

03:04added to over the past eight years. And where we've added, we've increased that by 17%. And we were going

03:13back to the pre Biden era levels. And that's what the riffs are intended to do. Sorry. And as you saw

03:20gaps in some of those decisions, you were brought people back to fill the gaps to complete the mission

03:25that you want HHS to do. So that's that. So thanks for doing that. So one other question, I only have

03:30about a minute and a half left, but one of my biggest priorities over time has been innovation. We talked

03:34about Boston and what's going on there with type one and Alzheimer's and others. President Trump finalized the

03:40Medicare coverage of an innovative technology rule just before the end of his first term. President Biden

03:47modified the incident rule, but significantly restricted access to the program. And by extension, restricted

03:54President Biden's administration restricted access to breakthrough technology. Will CMS modify the Biden

04:00administration's policy? And do you have a timeline from we can expect modifications on MSIT? We're

04:06doing more than any, I think probably any other cabinet department and drive AI to drive AI and new

04:15technologies into the healthcare system into our department. We're using it in every aspect of our

04:22health department. You saw my press conference yesterday with Chris Klump. He's a billionaire who's

04:28walked away from a billion dollar business in Silicon Valley to come and revolutionize AI in our department. We're

04:37doing that at every level of our department. We have the best people in the world working for us. And we're going to

04:43transform the American health system over the next four years and make it the leading health system in the world. Because of

04:50the technology that we're bringing in and we have the best people working for us, we've been able to recruit and attract

04:56people of unprecedented caliber.

04:59To our agency to facilitate that transformation.

05:03And it's one of the things that I'm most excited about.

05:06Thank you. Well, my time just expired and I appreciate you being our yield back.

05:09The gentleman yields the chair now.

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