“Examining the Policies and Priorities of the Department of Health and Human Services”

Americans are facing rising healthcare costs, declining public trust, and worsening rates of chronic disease. Strong leadership at HHS is more important than ever. Under Secretary Kennedy, HHS is taking bold and decisive action to make America healthy again. Healthcare is a critical part of the equation. Yet for too many families, the cost of care continues to rise while transparency remains out of reach. Patients and employers are too often left in the dark, unable to make informed choices about price and quality. That's unacceptable. Americans deserve clear and upfront pricing that will help drive competition and lower costs. This committee remains focused on strengthening transparency and ensuring the system works for patients, not against them. And we're glad to have the partnership of this HHS to help accomplish those goals. But access to healthcare is only one piece of the puzzle. Health begins long before a patient enters a doctor's office. It starts with nutrition, prevention, and daily choices. Under Secretary Kennedy's leadership, HHS has righted the food pyramid and delivered scientifically sound dietary guidelines for Americans. These are critical steps toward building a stronger foundation for public health, particularly for children. This is also an area where the committee has led. We restored access to healthy, full-fat dairy in federal child nutrition programs, ensuring children receive the minimum they need to grow and thrive. Health is also shaped by environments in which we live. Strengthening high-quality early childhood education and care programs that working parents rely on, and protecting them from waste, fraud, and abuse, helps create a culture of learning and care where our children can thrive. At the same time, restoring focus and accountability in these programs is critical to earning the public's trust. Taxpayer dollars should support children and families, not advance ideological initiatives. This is particularly true of DEI-driven mandates and gender ideology that have saturated our society. Policies that promote or subsidize irreversible medical interventions on minors raise serious concerns, both medically and ethically. Sex-rejecting procedures and mutilating chemical treatments are an abominable use of federal taxpayer dollars and tear at the very fabric of American society. I'm very glad to see HHS taking steps to combat this and ensure that the well-being of children, not politics, remains the focus. Finally, I want to commend the department for also making America fiscally healthy again. The department's budget proposal reins in a bloated, unaccountable bureaucracy by restructuring HHS to refocus on core principles, all while saving taxpayers $1.8 billion every year. In other words, HHS is doing more with less. That's exactly the kind of governance the American people expect and deserve. At the end of the day, this is about people. Families trying to afford care, parents trying to raise healthy children, and communities striving for a better future. The policies we shape here have real consequences in each of their lives. We have a responsibility to get this right, and I certainly appreciate Secretary Kennedy's willingness to take on these challenges. And I look forward to working together to build a healthier, stronger future for every American. With that said, I yield to the ranking member, the gentleman from Virginia, Mr. Scott, for his opening statement.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, Secretary Kennedy, for your testimony this morning. Your appearance before the committee today, as they say, has been a long time coming. Mr. Secretary, you lead an agency that has immense responsibility to both enhance and protect America's well-being. The mission of the Department of Health and Human Services is to embrace the health and well-being of all Americans by providing for effective health and human services and by fostering sound, sustained advances in the sciences underlying medicine, public health, and social services. This mission is why many get involved in public service in the first place. This is in part why the President's words the other day were so shocking. As President Trump said, and you can see on over my shoulder, "We're fighting wars... it's not possible for us to take care of daycare, Medicaid, Medicare, all these individual things... they can do it on a state basis. You can't do it on a federal level. You have to take care of one thing, military protection." And regrettably, the proposed budget that you're here to defend today reflects that sentiment. Overall, the White House's proposed budget reduces HHS discretionary budget authority by about $15.8 billion, or 12.5 percent. If these proposed cuts are enacted, it will have devastating consequences for Americans' health and well-being and will raise costs for America's families. Take Americans' healthcare, for example. The proposed budget cuts target public health agencies such as the Center for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes for Health, weakening the systems that communities rely on to prevent disease and respond to crisis. Additionally, thanks to the cuts from HR 1, or what we refer to as the Big Ugly Bill, policies of this administration, Americans are now paying more to see a doctor and to fill prescriptions. Americans should not have to go into debt just in order to stay healthy. The department should be focusing on ensuring affordable, accessible health coverage for as many people as possible. Regrettably, when fully implemented, the actions taken by this Congress and administration will reduce the number of people insured by about 15 million. And as a direct result of this administration's policies and priorities, the cost of living has become increasingly unaffordable. Moreover, the President has recklessly gotten us into another war in the Middle East, causing energy prices to skyrocket. And as those energy prices skyrocket, your budget would eliminate the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, LIHEAP, which helps millions of families stay warm in the winter and cool in the summer, reducing the risk of health and safety problems arising from unsafe heating and cooling situations. Similarly, American families are struggling to find safe, affordable childcare. In Trump's words, that it is not possible for us to take care of daycare, the President's budget proposes flat funding both Head Start and the Child Care Development Block Grant, even though current funding levels serve only a small fraction of eligible children. And when adjusted for inflation, flat funding would likely result in fewer children actually served. In addition, the President's budget would completely eliminate the Preschool Development Grant, which helps states improve the quality and safety of childcare programs and ensures all children can arrive at kindergarten ready to succeed. Last year, HHS illegally withheld funds from Head Start facilities nationwide, pushing many Head Start programs to the brink. And earlier this year, HHS froze over $10 billion in congressionally appropriated funds for five Democratic-led states, which also impacted childcare development funds and the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, TANF. These actions were not without victims. Many childcare providers and grantees are already operating on shoestring budgets. And without federal support, childcare centers may have to close. And when they do, the parents are left in a lurch without access to childcare. In times like these, the social safety net programs provide struggling families a lifeline. However, these programs have either been taken away or scaled back under your leadership. Cutting these programs doesn't make the cost of childcare, food, or health go away, and only shifts the burden onto the households that can least afford them. Lastly, I want to address the growing concerns of Americans with disabilities who have been acutely impacted by your department's policies and priorities. Last year, you targeted the Administration for Community Living, an office that houses several key programs for people with disabilities as well as seniors. The loss of ACL would not merely be a bureaucratic shift. Its proposed elimination sent a clear message that the rights and safety of people with disabilities and older adults are no longer a priority for HHS. After more than 50 years of bipartisan progress towards independent living and equal opportunity, the proposed dismantle of ACL takes this country backwards. Last August, I released a report detailing how the administration has undermined programs such as Centers for Independent Living and Assistive Technology. Moreover, the Big Ugly Bill's deep cuts to Medicaid will inevitably reduce home and community-based services, the very support that allows people with disabilities to live independently. And I'd like to ask unanimous consent to enter that report into the record.

Without objection. Objection and hearing none, it will be entered.

Thank you. Additionally, your proposed budget eliminated the Chronic Disease Self-Management Education and Fall Prevention programs, effective programs that seniors across the country have come to rely on. When services are cut, families face impossible choices. People risk losing their independence, and so I ask you to reconsider your position and recommit to fully supporting people with disabilities and older Americans. So, Mr. Secretary, I want today's discussion to focus on how we can actually fulfill HHS's mission and our commitment as citizens to care for one another. Regrettably, I fear that this budget proposal will not serve that goal. Thank you, and I yield back.

I thank the gentleman. Pursuant to committee rule 8C, all members who wish to insert written statements into the record may do so by submitting them to the committee clerk electronically in Microsoft Word format by 5:00 p.m., 14 days after this hearing. And without objection, the hearing record will remain open for 14 days to allow such statements and other extraneous material noted during the hearing to be submitted for the official hearing record. I'll now turn to the introduction of today's witness, the Honorable Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Mr. Secretary, we are grateful to have you here today. Thank you so much. As you're aware, it's your responsibility to provide accurate information to the committee. Pursuant to committee rules, I would ask that you limit your oral presentation to a five-minute summary of your written statement. And with that, Mr. Secretary, you're recognized for your testimony.

Thank you for that, Chairman Walberg and Ranking Member Scott, members of the committee. I appreciate you all coming. I know a lot of you had a late night. And Ranking Member Scott, thank you for taking time to talk to me here earlier this week. And thank you for the opportunity to be here to discuss the President's fiscal year 2027 budget request. We stand at a generational turning point. Our children are the sickest generation in modern history. And decades of failed policy, captured agencies, and profit-driven systems caused it. Parents across the country demand change, and we are delivering it. We are ending the era of federal policies that fueled the chronic disease epidemic and replacing them with policies that put the health of Americans first. President Trump and I are challenging the status quo and the institutions that defend it as we work to make America healthy again. In just 15 months, HHS has delivered historic wins. We negotiated the most favored nation drug prices with 16 of the largest pharmaceutical companies so Americans no longer pay more than other people in wealthy countries for the exact same medications. We are bringing real transparency to healthcare pricing so patients know the cost of care before they receive it. I used the full convening power of the federal government to bring health insurance CEOs to the table and reform prior authorization. We are cutting red tape, speeding decisions, and demanding transparency. We're also cracking down on waste, fraud, and abuse. This year, HHS and USDA issued the new dietary guidelines that put real food, whole food at the center of the American plate. We flipped the food pyramid upside down and sent a clear message to the American people: eat real food. HHS has also opened the door to partnerships with industry, trade associations, nonprofit, and advocacy organizations. More than 50 medical schools have committed to expand nutrition education from an average of just two hours to 40 hours. Food manufacturers are stepping up too. More than 40 percent of the food industry is committed to phase out petroleum-based dyes by year end, and many have already eliminated them. We're also working with the 400 top tech companies to end information blocking, and they've all pledged to do so, and Americans are already seeing the benefits. In conjunction with these efforts, FDA approved six natural food colorings derived from fruits and vegetables. Through President Trump's Great American Recovery Initiative, HHS is matching compassion with action to help Americans break the cycle of addiction. At HHS, we are prioritizing patients with ultra-rare diseases and their families and driving faster access to life-saving treatments. We're restoring gold standard science and integrity across the agency. We're protecting children from sex-rejecting procedures that expose them to irreversible harm. We're eliminating outdated and misleading warning labels on hormone therapies used to treat women during menopause. We're strengthening oversight of organ procurement. We're implementing Operation Stork Speed to ensure the safety and quality of infant formula. We're applying that same focus and urgency to rural America. The Rural Health Transformation Fund delivers the largest investment in rural health in our nation's history: $50 billion over five years to strengthen rural hospitals and ensure that Americans can access the care they need no matter where they live. Members of Congress on both sides of the aisle have made rural health a clear priority in their conversations with me because every state is feeling the strain of hospital closures, workforce shortages, and gaps in access. HHS announced more than 135 million investment this month alone to expand rural residency programs from a completely different program and nutrition services. The data is clear: when physicians train in rural communities, they're far more likely to stay and serve there. The President's budget also puts these priorities into action. It invests in prevention because preventing disease costs less and delivers better outcomes than treating it. As my uncle, President John F. Kennedy, said, "Progress is a nice word, but change is its motivator, and change has its enemies." We see those forces clearly: entrenched interests, defenders of a failing status quo, and institutions that put profit ahead of the American people. The resistance underscores the urgency of this moment. We can reverse chronic disease, improve public health, and lower costs. I stand ready to work with this committee and Congress to seize this opportunity to implement and codify lasting generational reform in American healthcare for our country, for our children, and for the health of the American people. Together, we can make America healthy again. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Secretary. Under committee rule nine, we will now question Secretary Kennedy under the five-minute rule, and I might make mention, Mr. Secretary, that this committee, while it's known for being passionate in its questioning and its debate, it's still so far this term has followed the example that we could have a second-grade class turn in and watch our meetings and our hearings and our questionings, and the teacher wouldn't have to turn it off. And I think that will be the case today. But...

That will be refreshing, Chairman.

It'll be firm and it'll be strong, but I trust it'll continue to be respectful. I'll now recognize myself for five minutes of questioning. There is a burning question in inquiring minds, as I understand it, to hear you answer the question as to whether you're responsible for the measles outbreak. So let me ask that question.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I've been accused of that. The accusation is not science-based. The measles outbreak began in January 2025 before I took office. Now, almost 90 percent of the people affected are over five years old, so they made the decision not to vaccinate. Their decision not to vaccinate predated my occupation of this seat. We've done better. The measles outbreak is not an American phenomenon. It is global. It's happening all over the world. And we've done better under my leadership than any country in the world in limiting it. Last year, we had 2,200, approximately 2,200 cases. Mexico had almost three times, more than three times that number, and they have one-third of our population. Canada had double that number, and they have one-eighth of our population. Europe had almost 10 times that number, and they only have double of our population. Many other countries have lost their elimination status. Canada lost it. Britain lost it. These are countries I haven't visited in years. Many European countries have lost it: Austria and others. I want to say something because two little girls died tragically in the Mennonite community in Texas. Mennonites have not vaccinated since 1796. So this had nothing to do with me. I went to the funeral of one of those little girls, and I spent a day with the family of the other. And both of them told me that when they took their children to the hospital, they were treated as pariahs. They were shamed. They were not given proper treatments. Both families believe their daughters, and their own doctors believe their daughters could have been saved if the hospital gave them proper treatment. The fact that they did not have a proper treatment to give them is regulatory practice by this agency. This agency has been so focused on a single intervention that it does not advise doctors about how to treat people who are actually sick. There's a lot of people in this country who for religious reasons or other reasons are not going to vaccinate. And I believe that we need to treat them with compassion and understanding and empathy and get them the treatments that they would get anywhere else in the world except for this country. Thank you.

Thank you. As part of the Trump administration's effort to return education to the states and put power back into the hands of parents and families as well, HHS has signed a number of interagency agreements with the Department of Education to administer medical accreditation and early childhood education and care programs. Please say more about why it makes sense to run these programs out of HHS.

Well, some of these programs should have always been under HHS purview. It just makes more sense. They're health-related programs rather than particularly educated programs. And we have many parallel programs at HHS that can benefit from synergies from each other. The decision is also within the purview of the DOE Secretary Linda McMahon. She has power to contract out these functions to other agency, and it's a broad power, and she's operating under that power.

There've been troubling reports of states removing children from their parents' care when those parents decline to support their child's self-identification or identification as another sex. Do parents have the right to raise their children according to their sincerely held religious beliefs or moral convictions?

President Trump believes that they do. And during the Biden administration, the Biden administration HHS sent out letters to states to pass legislation to prohibit people who had certain religious beliefs from being able to foster children. This turns out to have been a very, very large pool of people. And then as a result of that, we've the ratio between children, foster children, and parents has dropped to two to one. Our objective by the end of my administration here and the Trump administration is to get us back to a one-to-one ratio. And we have sent out letters to all the states to end that policy.

Thank you. My time has expired. I now recognize the gentleman from Connecticut, Mr. Courtney.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Secretary, after 14 months on the job, your long overdue appearance before this committee is particularly pertinent given the fact that your uncle, John F. Kennedy, served on this committee for his entire six years as a House member representing the 11th District of Massachusetts. As his National Archive bio states, as a House member, he advocated expanding healthcare for all. And as President in 1961, he supported passage of the Medicare legislation, the King-Anderson bill, which was ultimately enacted in 1965 by his successor. That transformational federal law provided universal insurance for seniors at a time when only 50 percent could afford health insurance. In over time, it has vastly improved the health and life expectancy of our nation. Your other uncle, Senator Ted Kennedy, who I'm proud to say campaigned for me when I was first elected to Congress by a whopping margin of 83 votes, declared, quote, "Universal healthcare is the cause of my life," and was lead sponsor of the Affordable Care Act when it was introduced in 2009. He did not live to see its enactment, but we know now that the ACA successfully cut the uninsured rate in half by 2024 prior to your arrival at HHS. Clearly, universal healthcare is not the cause of your life. On your watch at HHS, we've seen a massive jump in the uninsured population since January 2025: 1.2 million have already lost coverage thanks to the Trump administration's refusal to extend the ACA enhanced tax credits, even though we passed a bipartisan bill in the House to do so. A couple of days ago, the Wall Street Journal reported that that 1.2 million number is going to continue to grow because 14 percent of new enrollees this year didn't make their first payments for the new Trump premiums. As the Journal reported, this will add millions more to the ranks of the uninsured. Even worse, with the passage of the misnamed one big beautiful bill, CBO reports another 10 million at least will lose their coverage as states are forced to implement the largest cut to Medicaid in American history. According to Gallup two weeks ago, the affordability of health coverage has now jumped to the top domestic policy concern facing Americans, which is pretty striking given the fact that the cost of housing, groceries, and gas to get to work has skyrocketed under this administration. But they're right to be concerned about the expense of trying to maintain insurance coverage because they know when you lose health insurance, you miss routine checkups, preventive tests and scans for cancer and heart disease, and inpatient care if needed. Slashing health insurance affordability does not make America healthy nor more economically secure. At an Easter luncheon a couple of weeks ago, Mr. Trump stated that, quote, "it's not possible for the federal government to pay for Medicare and Medicaid. It's up to the states to take responsibility for those programs." As the person in charge of CMS and after 60 years of operation as a federal program, which by the way your father voted for in 1965 when he was a senator from the state of New York, do you support his position that states should take over control and operation of the Medicare program?

Congresswoman, I look forward to working with your staff.

Thank you. My last question, Mr. Secretary, is I have heard today that a new Danish study just came out finding...

I believe that we should save Medicaid and Medicare. They're absolutely critical programs and President Trump has pledged to do that and is doing everything in his power to do so. There are no cuts to Medicaid. Look at the CBO, the Congressional Budget Office report.

My question, excuse me, was do you think the states, do the states, the states should be vested with control of the Medicare program? That's the question because that's exactly what he said. He's your boss. Is that your position?

President Trump's position is that we should preserve Medicare.

No, by sending it to the states. That's the death knell.

Are you saying Medicaid or Medicare?

Medicare. It's right there.

President Trump's objective is to save Medicare and we are taking...

Not by send... well, it will not save it by sending it to the states. That will destroy the program and that's why it was designed the way it was 60 years ago.

I don't think there's a proposal to send it to the states.

Okay, let me ask you another question. In your...

I don't know of that proposal and the president has not told me about it. President's trying to save...

Well, the... for seniors, for seniors in American families, they listen to what the president says and they understand exactly what he's talking about, which is destroying the Medicare program. In your testimony, you talked about having insurance premiums...

Let me answer your question. You clearly don't want me to answer these questions.

No, you actually didn't answer the question at all. You didn't talk about whether the states should be given the authority to run Medicare.

My answer has to begin with correcting a lot of the misstatements that you made in your introduction and I'm happy to do that.

Well, that's not a misstatement. That's a direct quote from your boss.

I'm telling you that president's policy is to save Medicare. That's what he's always said.

Giving it to the states will destroy Medicare. I yield back.

Gentleman yields and I recognize the gentlelady from North Carolina, Ms. Virginia Foxx.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Secretary, it's good to see you. We welcome you to the committee. I have to join the chairman, Chairman Walberg, in saying that the Department of Health and Human Services budget request is a breath of fresh air. Congratulations to you on presenting us with a budget that could reduce spending by $1.8 billion annually, saving taxpayer dollars at the federal level while still providing the programs and services that reach families who need them. Under the previous secretary, the department engaged in runaway spending, so I congratulate you on what you're doing. Secretary, this committee's held two hearings and marked up eight bills related to the Child Care and Development Block Grant, or CCDBG program. Federal child care assistance is a critical support for low-income working parents seeking to access child care and remain in the workforce. Therefore, child care is not only a family issue but an economic issue. HHS awards many different grants for states in the human services space. Can you explain the urgent need to protect programs like CCDBG from waste, fraud, and abuse, especially as they are administered at the state level?

I mean, we saw during the Biden administration, my predecessor actually instructed people in my department to end program integrity. So they took, we had 80 people in my department when Secretary Becerra came in who were assigned to do program integrity for these state programs and he fired all but six of them. So that stopped and they specifically told people in my department, don't worry about fraud, worry about enrollments. They changed a policy to a policy of our payment policy to a pay and chase policy so that even claims that we knew to be fraudulent, we would pay and then later go back and try to claw back that money, which incidentally never happened. We have now changed those policies. We are investigating the fraud and I'll give you one example. In Minnesota for applied behavioral analytics, which is treatments for kids with autism, we were expecting to pay $7 million a year for that program. We ended up paying almost $300 million. The difference is fraud and we're seeing that now that that money was being, some of it was being sent to Al-Shabaab in Somalia. We have now impounded payments to Minnesota because they for one quarter about $350 million because they've refused to give us receipts and we've said we're not going to pay until you can show us the receipts.

Well, I'm proud to say that in North Carolina, our Republican legislature is doing everything it can to hold Democrat elected officials in the state to account for fraud and abuse in North Carolina on Medicaid and other programs and so I'm very proud of them. I also want to say, Mr. Secretary, many of us have issues from our states and from our constituents that deal with HHS and I hope you'll commit today to helping us get some of those issues solved because many times they do save money for the taxpayer. So I will appreciate your making that commitment.

Congresswoman, I look forward to working with your staff.

Thank you. My last question, Mr. Secretary, is I have heard today that a new Danish study just came out finding no connection between Tylenol and autism. What is your reaction to that study?

The study is a garbage study, should be retracted. The study took a million, the medical records of a million Danish women and it compared women who got Tylenol during pregnancy to people who did not. The problem is the way it determined whether they got Tylenol during pregnancy was by prescriptions. So only 2 percent of the people in the study got Tylenol during pregnancy according to the endpoint. In fact, we know because Tylenol's available over the counter, most of you have taken Tylenol, very few of you have ever gotten a prescription. Fifty percent of the women in Denmark we know from other studies actually took Tylenol during pregnancy. So the study was comparing women who took Tylenol during pregnancy to women who took Tylenol during pregnancy. It was a garbage in, garbage out study. The industry has the capacity to generate these studies all the time and it's fraudulent. It should be retracted.

Gentlelady's time has expired. I now recognize the gentlelady from Oregon, Ms. Bonamici.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Secretary, the mission of the Department of Health and Human Services starts with these words: "to enhance the health and well-being of all Americans." This is a yes or no question. Does all Americans include children?

Of course.

Well, I frequently talk with families who tell me they can't find child care and if they can find it, they can't afford it. In fact, the child care crisis is costing families about $134 billion in lost earnings annually. And recently, as we've heard this morning and I'll repeat, the president said there's no money for day care because he needs more money to fight the war, which is costing about $2 billion a day. Your department's budget flat funds child care, which won't help at all. Yet you did spend money on a bizarre vanity video with Kid Rock. So Secretary Kennedy, how does it enhance the health and well-being of children to spend HHS's limited resources and taxpayer money on a video of yourself drinking milk in a hot tub with Kid Rock? And how much did it cost to prepare and produce this video?

Congresswoman, I was asked to cut costs across my department because we have a $39 trillion debt.

I understand, Mr. Secretary. How much did it cost to produce this video?

I want to correct something that you said.

I'm asking how much did it cost to produce this video.

I would have no idea.

Okay, you don't have any idea. Well, I'll tell you that that money, whatever it cost, I consider waste, fraud, and abuse and that's money that should have been invested in our nation's children and spent on something like health care and child care that actually improve people's lives.

Actually, you know, so many people have come up to me who saw that video and say that inspired me to work out and that's one of the things that we want to do in this...

Mr. Secretary, the return on investment that we get from early childhood education shows that for every dollar we spend, we get back somewhere between $4 and $16. Secretary Kennedy, about 20 years ago, the United States eliminated measles. So or so we thought, but now because of your anti-science rhetoric, vaccination rates are down in many places below the 95 percent threshold needed to maintain herd immunity. And I know you said that happened before you were secretary, but Mr. Secretary, you've been a long-time voice against vaccination for more than 20 years. Measles is highly contagious. It can make babies, babies who may be too young to be vaccinated, so sick that they stop eating and drinking and may develop pneumonia or brain swelling. In my home state of Oregon, the Oregon Health Authority just recently warned about multiple new locations where people may have been exposed: a community college, a middle school, a health clinic, grocery stores. This is unacceptable. So Secretary Kennedy, does exposing infants and children to measles enhance their health and well-being?

I've never been anti-vax. I've always said I'm not anti-vax. Right now, I just approved three weeks ago $500 million for new for research on a new cancer vaccine.

Mr. Secretary, you have been a long-time voice against vaccination. You cannot deny that.

No, I have not. No, I'm not anti-vax, I'm pro-science. What I've said is vaccines should be adequately safety tested so we know both both the risk and the benefits. I am funding a major study on developing a universal flu vaccine at NIH.

Reclaiming my time. Mr. Secretary, in fact, you have said in a congressional hearing that people should not be taking medical advice from you. The problem is that they are and they believe what you say. So Secretary Kennedy, I have another question. Does enhancing health include mental health?

Of course.

Good, I'm glad you agree because recently masked armed ICE agents surrounded some high school students near their school. A Latino student from Oregon, a U.S. citizen, recently spoke about he and his friends feel scared at school, have trouble focusing, and feel dehumanized. And President Trump, as you likely know, repealed the guidance that keeps ICE out of sensitive locations like schools and healthcare centers. Now children can't understand the complexities of the U.S. immigration system, but they are scared and they can feel anxiety. So Secretary Kennedy, does it enhance the health and well-being of children to allow immigration enforcement in and around schools and at childcare centers? Does that help kids?

It enhance it was not enhancing our health and well-being of the American people to allow 20 million illegal aliens into this country. And President Trump, again, is left with a mess that he is having to...

Mr. Secretary, in no...

...and he is having to clean up...

In in no legal or moral or ethical frame does it does it make sense to punish children. Young children's brains are highly influenced by...

That was the biggest humanitarian crisis in modern history what you guys caused. If you cared about children, we have now stopped 97 percent of the unaccompanied minors from coming across the border.

Mr. Secretary, supporting the health and...

...if that is a concern for children, what you were doing did not.

Mr. Secretary, support I'm reclaiming my time supporting the health and well-being of our nation's children is the best investment we can make for the good of the country and the safety and health of American people, including children, and to truly make America healthy again, you should resign and allow someone with real qualifications to run this agency.

Gentlelady's time has expired. I now recognize the gentleman from Wisconsin, Mr. Grothman.

Yeah, I've voted for President Trump for a lot of reasons, but one of the primary reasons was I thought he might give you this position. So I'm glad you're here.

Very grateful. Yes.

And on this mental health thing, I am given where the mental health professionals have stood on this transgender treatment, I wonder how much we can trust that occupation to get anything right. So just not everybody thinks we ought to give these mental health professionals more. But now now we're going to switch to the questions. What effect have the poor guidelines from the old food pyramid what effects have poor guidelines on the old food pyramid had on child health?

They...

And by the way, compared yeah, go ahead.

I mean, the food pyramid was for 50 years was written by industry lobbyists and reflected the mercantile ambitions of those industries and not public health. It pushed Americans towards ultra-processed foods and highly refined carbohydrates that destroyed their metabolic system. 70 percent of the calories Americans eat typically right now are ultra-processed or highly refined carbohydrates and it caused a metabolic crisis, diabetes is an example. When I was a kid, the average pediatrician saw one case of juvenile or of type 2 diabetes over a 40 or 50 year career. Today 38 percent of American teens are diabetic or pre-diabetic. It has made our country the sickest country in the world, the sickest with chronic disease in the history of the world. 77 percent of American children cannot qualify for military service. That should get a lot of people's attention.

Well, I'll tell you, there's a lot of a lot of money floating around here from the junk food lobbyists and the pharmaceutical industry and I'm glad you're taking it on and I'm sure you're going to get a lot of hostility from the other side of the aisle from your desire to do that. Touching on this sex change operations and all this hoo-ha, the professional medical societies and particularly the mental health societies have endorsed these sex change operations. To me it means we just can't trust the medical societies. But why do you believe they did this? Why were the mental health professional people pushing sex change operations on 14-year-old kids? Why do you think?

Well, it was a multi-billion dollar industry and I think that, you know, it it the corruption follows the money. And but you look at the science, there's now been two major meta-reviews been done, the Cass study in the UK, which the revelations in the Cass study stopped Europeans from funding these. And then we did our own meta-review plus individual studies in NIH that show the same thing that the the the results to children, the outcomes in children are catastrophic in terms of depression, suicide, all kinds of illnesses. It's condemnation to a life of misery. And there is no scientific justification. Common sense.

I'll give you a follow-up here. What can we do to protect children in the future from the medical associations and particularly the mental health medical associations from harming our kids? How can we prevent them from doing that?

Well, we have taken steps to do that. We have ended all federal funding for those kind for puberty blockers and gender mutilation surgeries and we have instructed hospitals and medical centers around the country that if they do host those kind of interventions that they will lose all their Medicaid Medicare funding.

Thank you. What scares me is the professionals who pushed this stuff in the past are still practicing. And that concerns me because if they can't get this right, right, if they're if they're pushing sex change operations on 14-year-old kids, I'm afraid they probably can't get anything right. I would would you ever under any circumstances send one of your grandchildren to a medical professional who you knew even if he stopped doing it had at one time or other pushed this stuff?

I would not.

Yeah, I didn't think so. Now a quick question follow-up we talked about nutrition and, you know, large segment of American society gets their money from food stamps or food share. Would you be in favor of some widespread restructuring this whole program or maybe getting rid of the food stamp program and starting with a new program that was more healthy based?

I support the food stamp program and under Brooke Rollins' leadership at USDA we are transforming it. We've already with Brooke and I encouraging them over half the states have now applied for SNAP waivers so they're no longer paying for soda for sugar sodas which were 10 percent of the SNAP budget so we were giving poor kids the 63 million poor kids in this country diabetes for free at federal expense and treating them 78 percent of them end up on Medicaid and we're treating them afterwards we're paying at both ends.

The gentleman's time has expired.

Half the states almost all red states although two blue states have now applied for SNAP waivers soon we're going to have a definition of ultra-processed foods we're going to...

Gentleman's time has expired. I have to I have to move on and I recognize the gentleman from California, Mr. Takano.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Secretary, you are the nation's top health official. And I want to talk to you today about the President's mental health. On April 5 at 8:00 in the morning of Easter Sunday, President Trump posted this statement on social media. Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran. There will be nothing like it!!! Open the Fuckin' Strait, you crazy bastards, or you'll be living in Hell—JUST WATCH Praise be to Allah. President DONALD J. TRUMP. An American President used the F-word in a Sunday morning message that was seen by millions of people. Mr. Secretary, does this raise concerns for you about the President's mental health?

The President is a bargainer and he he knows how to make good deals.

Mr. Secretary, does this raise questions about the President's mental health to you?

Here's what I would say that for two generations every American President...

Mr. Secretary, you're being non-responsive. I'm reclaiming my time, Mr. Secretary. I gather the answer it does not raise concerns for you. Two days later on April 7, President Trump put out a statement that said quote, A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again. I don't want that to happen, but it probably will. End quote. Mr. Secretary, the Commander in Chief of the United States military is calling for the eradication of an entire civilization. And five days later the President started posting on Truth Social at 9:00 PM at night continuing until 5:00 AM the next morning. And included an unhinged attack on Pope Leo claiming Pope Leo was weak on crime. And then later that day, the next day, President Trump posted this image of himself as Jesus Christ. Mr. Secretary, people across the country and around the world were deeply offended by this blasphemous image. Millions of Americans are questioning this President's mental fitness, his emotional stability, and whether he can carry out the duties of his office. Do you share their concerns about his mental health?

I want to call your attention to the last line of that...

Mr. Secretary, my question was do you share their concerns about his mental health?

I want to call your attention again...

Mr. Secretary, you're not being responsive apparently not reclaiming my time, Mr. Secretary. Mr. Secretary, reclaiming my time, Mr. Chairman, direct the witness, it's my time, Mr. Secretary. You're not being responsive and apparently you don't share their concerns. We are a nation at war, Mr. Secretary. We need a Commander in Chief that we know has full command of his mental faculties and is emotionally stable as he sends uniformed American men and women into harm's way. Millions of Americans are now wondering if this President is delusional and thinks he is Jesus Christ. Mr. Secretary, given everything that I've shown you today, will you insist that President Trump undergo an assessment of his mental fitness and his emotional stability?

Absolutely not.

Thank you, Mr. Secretary. Reclaiming my time, under so absolutely not. I remind you that under the 25th Amendment, you have a duty to remove a President who is physically or mentally unable to discharge his responsibilities under the Constitution. It's your duty. You took an oath to the Constitution, not to President Trump. Mr. Secretary, should President Trump fail a mental fitness test or an evaluation about his mental stability or emotional stability, would you vote to invoke the 25th Amendment?

There hasn't been a President who's more sane...

Mr. Secretary, my question is would you vote to invoke the 25th Amendment?

Look at the video of President Biden this week.

Mr. Secretary, reclaiming my time. It's my question, my question, Mr. Secretary. Would you invoke the 25th Amendment if he were to fail an assessment of his mental stability or emotional stability?

As I said, President Trump is the most...

Apparently not, Mr. Secretary, apparently not. Mr. Secretary, we can all see that this President is mentally unstable, emotionally unstable, and is unfit to lead this country. You as the nation's top health official have a particular role here. And you are choosing your loyalty to Donald Trump over your loyalty to the Constitution and being keeping the faith with the American people. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.

You need the fundraising video...

Mr. Chairman, I yield back.

The gentleman's time has expired and been yielded and I could ask the second grade classes to turn in again at this point. I would I'd hesitate to say something about the 25th Amendment with the last President there was no concern there from the other side, but I won't say that. So now I recognize the gentleman from Georgia, Mr. Allen, for his five minutes.

Thank you, Chair Walberg, for holding this important hearing and I thank Secretary Kennedy for testifying. Sir, would you I'll give you I'll yield time to you, would you like to answer the gentleman's question?

Well, I don't really care to, but I, you know, because I'm not here to discuss foreign policy. But every Democrat in this chamber has promised for generations that we weren't going to let Iran get a nuclear weapon. It kept getting kicked down the road. And President Trump is cleaning up messes that other people made and he's doing it in a way he's he's the best business bargainer that we've ever had in the presidency. He knows how to make deals. He's made the best deals for these country for this country through tariffs, all the things he's engaged in, he's a genius at it. Let him do his work, let him be President, give him your support and let's support this country and our troops and try to move forward as a nation. He's trying to fix the problems that you made.

Thank you, Mr. Secretary. For years, so getting back to the subject we're talking about here today is healthcare. And we got a mess there too created by obviously the Affordable Care Act and, you know, we're spending 5 trillion on healthcare and we get the worst outcomes. I mean, you know, that's what we should be concerned about here today. But for years pharmacy benefit managers have benefited from opaque pricing tactics while healthcare costs continue to soar. My legislation the PBM Kickback Prohibition Act would prohibit PBMs from paying consultant and brokers who give trusted advice to employers and group health plan fiduciaries from taking compensation for steering businesses to PBMs. What steps can HHS take to curb PBMs' abusive practices and how might Congress be able to assist in this effort?

Well, it is a it's one of the it's one of the I would say perverse features of the healthcare system that PBMs who add nothing are getting 40 percent of the profits from drugs and they're driving up costs everywhere. President Trump is laser-focused on fixing the problem and I want to thank Congress for passing the recent bill that allows us to now go and and negotiate with the PBMs. We were already doing that. I want to commend Cigna and David Cordani for actually developing a model that is much more rational and that gets rid of the hidden kickbacks that delinks the the cost of the the list price of medicines from the compensations of the PBMs. The PBMs' compensation was increased by getting you to buy the most expensive, they're supposed to be a neutral arbiter on your side, but they made money if you bought the most expensive form of that medication. So they were steering Americans always toward the most expensive one and that's one of the things that drove up healthcare.

Well, we're losing pharmacies every day in rural America.

And we're getting vertical integration that is destroying our healthcare system.

And this stuff's got to stop. And let's talk about healthcare affordability. You know, affordability is a big subject today and obviously is, we spend twice what any other nation spends on healthcare with worse outcomes. You know, America, and we're, I'm talking about American workers and their families in ERISA specifically, which is where we cover most of the lives. What do you believe is the underlying causes of high healthcare costs and would you please discuss how much control employers who provide health benefits for their workers have over these costs?

Well, the biggest driver of healthcare costs is the chronic disease epidemic. So when my uncle was president, we spent zero on chronic disease in this country, zero. Today, we're spending 48 percent out of every dollar paid, if you include Social Security, health expenditures in the military. 48 cents out of every dollar that taxpayers give to the federal government goes to healthcare and 90 percent of that is chronic disease. The only way that we can solve this problem is with chronic disease. Another driver is high drug costs. We were paying the highest, we were paying two, three, five, 10, 15 times for the exact same drug made in a plant in New Jersey than in London, for example. Ozempic in this country, the list price when I came in was $1,300. In London, you could get it in any pharmacy for $88. And that was the rule we are now fixed, MFN, so we're going to be paying the lowest cost in the world. Another driver is the lack of transparency. There's no market. If you go buy an automobile and the guy who's selling it to you said, I'm not going to tell you the price till after you buy it, you'd think he was crazy.

I'm, sir, I'm out of time, but I would like...

We're fixing that too.

Yeah, I'd like to meet with you on some solutions that we're talking about, particularly to privatize ERISA and give it a way...

The gentleman's time has expired and I'm sure the meeting can take place. Now I recognize the gentlelady from North Carolina, Ms. Adams.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, Secretary Kennedy, for being here. I have a yes or no question. Do you agree that there's a connection between nutrition and health?

Of course.

Thank you. So nutrition and the importance of healthy foods seem to be a core part of the MAHA movement. Is that correct?

Of course.

Okay. Like you, I believe that you can't be healthy if you're hungry. But as Secretary of Health and Human Services, do you in your capacity advise the president on nutrition issues as they relate to health?

You mean his personal health?

On, on health issues, any of it.

Oh, yeah.

Okay. Thank you. Well, as I'm sure you know, many studies show that childhood is a critical time for proper nutrition. So a person's diet in childhood has a massive impact on their lifelong health and chronic disease risk. In February, you visited an elementary school where you had the opportunity to observe their scratch cooking practices and discuss the importance of serving healthy and fresh foods with school administrators and food service staff. So can you tell me why then did the president's budget include major cuts to programs for child nutrition like the $5 million from the farm to school program, eliminating school lunch equipment grants, and reducing the benefits that mothers and young children receive for fresh fruits and vegetables under the WIC program?

We are absolutely committed to child health and to good nutrition. We just put, you know, we have, we've preserved Head Start from any of the cuts and we just put $62 million into Head Start to make sure that the 660,000 children who are in Head Start can have good healthy meals.

All right, let me, let me reclaim my time. I have some other questions. So did the president discuss these proposed cuts with you?

Did the president? No.

Yes. Okay. Well, you know, cuts to the program that help ensure access to healthy and local foods would be a betrayal, I believe, of the MAHA agenda, which is your agenda.

We are expanding...

So excuse me, sir, I'm claiming my time here. Do you agree with these cuts being included in the president's budget?

We are expanding access...

Do, can you give me a yes or no? Do you agree with the, with the cuts being proposed in the budget?

We are expanding...

All right, I'm claiming my time. Do you agree or do you not? Can you say yes or no? Okay. So can I count on you to urge the president to reconsider these cuts and instead invest in school meals? Can we count on, can we count on you? Is that a yes or no? Can you give me a yes or no? Can I count on you to...

Of providing good nutrition to children, absolutely.

All right. So well listen, it seems like, and I'm glad you said that, but it seems like a betrayal of the people who have been promised by you as Secretary to use your position to make food healthier. So thank you for clarifying that for the American people. Now let me ask you about a survey of school food service directors who found that 79 percent of respondents expressed an extreme need, an extreme need for an increase in funding in order to expand scratch cooking and reduce the use of ultra-processed foods. So that same survey found that there's a serious need for additional staff, additional equipment, culinary training, and infrastructure. So sir, are you aware of the barriers such as food cost inflation and lack of kitchen equipment that schools face in serving healthy meals to children across the country?

I am absolutely aware of it.

Okay. So that's good to hear. But the budget, and we're doing something about it. Excuse me, sir, I'm claiming my time here. That's good to hear because the budget fails to provide any investments. In fact, it does the opposite.

That is not true.

What should, excuse me, what should, that is not true. I'm reclaiming my time. So what should I tell food service directors in my district who want to make the transition to less ultra-processed and pre-packaged foods but can barely cover the cost of these expenses? What should I tell them?

You might start by telling them the truth.

All right, well, I'm not getting that from you. But I suggest that you take the time to meet with food service directors across this country for a better understanding of the financial pressures on school meals programs. Many programs in our country are just not well-funded enough. They're not, and you keep, and you keep supporting the cuts in these budgets. They're not well-funded enough to scratch prepare meals and serve less ultra-processed and pre-packaged food, all of which are alleged goals outlined in your MAGA report, Make America Healthy Again. You're not doing it, Mr. Secretary. Mr. Chairman, I yield back.

The gentlelady's time has expired. I now...

I yield back.

I recognize the gentleman from Kentucky, Mr. Comer.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and Mr. Secretary, thank you so much for being here today. I want to bring to your attention a program very important to Kentuckians, the Community Services Block Grant or CSBG program. Community action agencies throughout Kentucky leverage a lean budget of federal CSBG funding and private resources to help individuals and families set out on a path to financial independence and self-sustainability. The community action agencies in my congressional district in Kentucky have shared with me concerns about the delivery of CSBG funding administered by HHS being delayed. Thankfully, Kentucky Community Action has a well-managed budget and has funding in reserves to last them for several more weeks. Unfortunately, they estimate that funding will begin to run out in early May. Is there an estimate of when CSBG funding for the remainder of quarter two and quarter three will be released?

We are trying to get it out the door, Congressman. We are in the interagency, we're in the interagency process right now.

Great. Thank you.

Can I, can I take a minute of your time just to reply to the previous...

Yes, sir.

What I would say to the Congresswoman is if you want just a soundbite that you can come in here, you can get that and you did it. But if you actually want to solve the problem, call me because we're aligned on the issue of getting good food to children and we think that we're doing a good job of it. We could do a better job, but come and tell us how we can do a better job and that would be something we could all profit from.

Thank you, Mr. Secretary. I love, I love what you said about the soundbites. This is not my, the committee I chair, the committee I chair is Oversight Committee and the Democrats live and breathe for soundbites. They have competitions to get on MSNBC and CNN during committee hearings, unfortunately.

I can't wait to come in before...

Yeah. Well, again, talking about the work in, in my Oversight Committee, we've led an investigation of the pharmacy benefit managers. We still have a long way to go to prevent PBM manipulation of patient access to effective and affordable medicines. I was glad to see the Lower Costs, More Transparency Act signed into law by President Trump. As you know, the PBM transparency and disclosure requirements included in that law will give patients and plan sponsors a more accurate picture of how little-known companies have distorted and taken advantage of our nation's healthcare system. My question, Mr. Secretary, do you consider vertical integration by the PBMs and their related companies a safety issue?

I absolutely do. And there's four companies that basically control the whole industry and that's not good by any economic model. It destroys competition. It raises prices. It lowers the quality of care.

Absolutely. Absolutely. There are three FDA-approved drugs for a common form of leukemia. Doctors must prescribe the most effective one based on each patient's individual health profile, including heart conditions or past responses to medication. These three leukemia drugs are not interchangeable, but some insurance plans are making patients fail on day one before they can access the preferred course of treatment prescribed by their doctor. So on March 19, I sent a letter to Dr. Oz expressing these concerns, however I continue to hear stories about how insurance companies and their PBMs override physician recommendations and block patients from getting the drugs they desperately need. Is there a reason patients should have to fail first on another medication and what is HHS doing to prevent insurers and their PBMs from requiring these types of unnecessary and often harmful outcomes?

Well, we, you know, I convened the insurance companies, the biggest ones that represent 80 percent of American lives. Three months into my office and I got them all to agree to end prior authorization in 87 percent of the or 80 percent of the procedures and conditions and prescriptions by 2027. So I think we may see an improvement, but as you know, it is a rapacious industry and they have they have people who don't have medical degrees making decisions that are life and death for patients after the doctor has said you need this drug, somebody, some bean counter in the insurance company is telling them I'm not going to let you have it. It's not a good system and it's and you know, we have to end it.

And and I will I will conclude by saying this, Mr. Chairman and Mr. Secretary, I think we don't agree on a lot in here in a bipartisan basis, but I think everyone agrees that the healthcare system in America is a disaster. We blame that on Obamacare. Everyone wants to improve the healthcare system. We all believe two two things: that that the health insurers are taking advantage of of patients, the health insurers are are impossible to deal with by the providers, and the PBMs have to be reined in. So thank you for your great work, Mr. Secretary, I yield back.

Gentleman's time has expired. I now recognize the gentleman from New Jersey, Mr. Norcross.

Thank you, Chairman, and I'd like to thank the witness for being here today and hopefully in the next five minutes we can have a conversation that is unfortunately near and dear to so many people in the United States, certainly your family, my family, and that is the mental health and the disease of addiction. And a budget that is proposed speaks of the values of that organization. So in particular, I want to talk about the mental health parity. We've seen devastation, the impact that addiction has on families. We know that also well, we've been to those funerals. This is an issue that I hope that we can have an area of some common ground. I'm not looking for a soundbite, I'm looking for answers and something that I thought we had worked long and hard that we aligned. So the action by the department under your leadership suggests that the Trump administration is retreating from the important issue and listening more to the insurance companies. Because as you know, if we go back 20 years, mental health was something that barely was ever talked about.

Can you just clarify the insurance companies on what what aspect?

So parity, that if you spend it physically, you have to spend the money and this is where much of the addiction and mental health comes in. So looking at the facts, under your predecessor, the Department of Labor, Treasury, and your department had landmark regulations strengthening the oversight of the health plan and the insurers. Critically important. These are the toughest federal parity rules ever applied to insurance companies. Last year the department announced that you would no longer enforce this regulation. Since then the administration has refused to stand up to defend the regulation in a lawsuit by the trade association. To me this is an indication of a retreat by the departments to go after to make sure that mental health, addiction treatment is available to anybody in the healthcare who has health insurance. And really surprised to see that this happened. Trump's bipartisan recommendation coming out of 2017 opioid commission led by Chris Christie and former Representative Patrick Kennedy, amongst others, to increase the federal government's authority to enforce parity, going to the insurance companies to say you have to treat mental health, addiction services the same way you would treat diabetes or any other health condition. Why have the department that you have made this change not going after the insurance company so people can get the treatment they need?

Well, first of all, I want to thank you for raising the issue and raising it in such a civil way and I would offline, I would love to talk to you more about this. We have a major for me it's a personal focus, but within my department, we have major new programs to address opioid addiction, other forms of addiction that I'd like to talk to you about. My cousin authored that bill, Patrick Kennedy, he is an advisor now to the department and is helping us on these policies. Unfortunately, we lost the lawsuit and we are now developing a new rule. So that's where we are. I'm happy to go into details or have my staff meet with your staff and I invite you to call me at any time.

We will. One of the major issues that we face going forward is that the rules in place that the insurance companies must do this, but if they are found to be in violation, there is no penalty. It's like speeding without getting tickets, it's a real problem. And just for last few minutes, there's a major cut proposed in SAMHSA, that substance abuse and mental health, literally almost a 40 percent cut. You know that, I know that is a backbone for so much that goes on. I encourage you to restore that money so this disease of addiction, mental health, the people can get the help. With that, I yield back.

I thank the gentleman. Pursuant to the previous order, the chair declares committee in recess subject to the call of the chair. We'll plan to reconvene promptly in five minutes. Thank you, the committee now stands in recess. The committee has finished the recess and we will continue on with questioning. I now recognize the gentleman from Utah, Mr. Owens.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. First of all, Mr. Secretary, thank you so much. We watched for decades as Americans have gotten sicker and sicker and our country and individuals gone into this financial ditch. I'm thankful that we're finally righting this ship, so keep up the good work and innovation. Earlier this year, we saw how the Child Care and Development Block Grant funding was defrauded in Minnesota to enrich bad actors taking advantage of a broken system there. In fact, the HHS audit report finalized last year made several recommendations for Minnesota to improve their anti-fraud measures. To your knowledge, did Minnesota work to implement those recommendations before the news broke of widespread fraud there?

[Crosstalk.] Microphone, please. Congressman, let me just say, take a moment to say how delighted I am to see you and say a word about the Oakland Raiders, which are your former team. During the 1968 campaign, my father's bodyguard for a lot of that campaign were four members of the Fearsome Foursome of the championship Oakland Raiders team, Rosie Grier, Merlin Olsen, Deacon Jones, and Lamar Lundy. And the night that my father was killed, Rosie Grier was the first person to grab Sirhan Sirhan. So my family has always had a very, very strong connection to your team and I'm really grateful to see you here today. We went after both blue states and red states because there were fraud in both. Florida had some of the biggest fraud in the country. The Florida Attorney General and the Governor cooperated with us, particularly in durable medical equipment, also in hospices, and in child care and home care. Minnesota is the opposite. They just absolutely refused to cooperate. And we asked them to provide receipts. They had already paid the providers and we now had to reimburse them for that pay, but we said give us the receipts, show us that people were actually tested. And for that program, which is Applied Behavioral Analytics, there are no qualifications. So the only qualification is you need a high school education. And they were mainly members of the person's family and they would get a kid in the family diagnosed or maybe several of them declared autistic by a crooked doctor and then have family members and cousins and everything else treating them. We have no evidence that there were any kids even treated for a lot of these. And the people were being paid, these children were being paid $600 an hour. So they ran up these huge bills, $300 million that disappeared. And we don't know, we expected to spend $7 million, we spent $300 million. And they've refused to give us the receipts. And so what we've done is we've impounded $359 million and said when you show us the receipt for one quarter, just one quarter, when you show us the receipts, we'll give you the money.

Well, I'm looking forward to this. I think it's great our country is finally focused on that particular area. Our health data system remains fragmented, archaic, and insecure across agencies and states. This creates real vulnerabilities for foreign-backed bad actors while crippling timely, coordinated decision-making, especially in crisis. Your budget request prioritizes modernization and interoperability. What specific structural deficiencies in this funding design is this funding designed to address and how will more integrated data infrastructure deliver faster real-time coordination, stronger policy execution, and better health outcomes for American people?

Well, cybersecurity is an absolute priority for us and we've been able to bring in the best companies, the best contractors, and the best minds in Silicon Valley to work on that issue. Telehealth, we are promoting in every part of our department, including the Rural Health Transformation Fund, which can give, which can provide telehealth now to rural communities where it's absolutely critical because a lot of them don't have access to doctors. And it lowers cost for the community because a lot of people don't end up having to go to the hospital emergency room. So it's absolutely a critical part of our program and we're going to see massive changes over the next three years.

Well, this committee has done a remarkable job of bringing innovation to modernization and interoperability for workforce to education. So I look forward to working with your team. We're doing some great things in that area, learning employment records, and I think it's going to be a win for all the agencies across the board. So thank you so much and I yield back.

I thank the gentleman. Gentleman's time has expired. I now recognize the gentlelady from Georgia, Mrs. McBath.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you, Secretary Kennedy, for being before us today. You have characterized many things as epidemics and threats to public health, including autism and the presence of fluoride in our drinking water. Shootings are the number one cause of death for children in this country and they have been since 2020. But when you were asked if gun violence was a public health crisis during your Senate confirmation hearing last year, you answered with a succinct no, which I would like to submit digitally for the record. My son Jordan Davis was murdered in a shooting at just 17 years of age. Simple answer, yes or no, do you believe that gun violence is an epidemic or a public health crisis?

I would say it's an epidemic. I think it's a law enforcement issue and not public health.

I find it kind of absurd to hear you say that. I really do.

Do you think I should be regulating gangs at HHS?

I think, Mr. Secretary, it's my time. I think it's kind of absurd to hear you say that. So can you tell me how many children were killed by fluoride toxicity in my home state of Georgia in 2024?

Fluoride toxicity? Probably none.

You're right. The answer is absolutely zero. So can you tell me how many children were killed by fluoride across the country in 2024?

Fluoride doesn't kill you. That's an absurd question.

Again, that answer is zero. So how about...

Nobody would answer that, ask that question.

I'm reclaiming my time. How about by firearms? Can you tell me how many kids were killed in shootings across the country in 2024? You can see right behind me.

I can't read it.

3,865. Over 10 a day. That's more than drownings, more than car accidents, more than cancer, and certainly more than fluoride. It is far more than many of the things that you choose to focus on in your time as Secretary. I'm reclaiming my time, Mr. Secretary. It's obvious that gun violence is an epidemic and it is both a public health crisis. I know it and so do the thousands of parents who are burying their kids in this country every single year. But what I don't know is how you can expect the American people to take your opinion seriously when you try to tell them that they don't need to worry about the leading cause of death for their kids while you...

I never told them that.

I'm reclaiming my time. While you tour the country to talk about the supposed dangers of fluoride. You should focus your efforts on things that are really killing our children in this country every single day. We have limited time here, but I also want to ask you about your comments about people with disabilities, especially about people with autism. During your first press conference as Secretary in April of last year, you said, and I'm quoting, "Autism destroys families. That these are kids who will never pay taxes, never hold a job, never play baseball, never write a poem, or go out on a date. Many of them will never use a toilet unassisted," which I would also like to submit for the record. The truth is that the majority of...

Can I respond to that?

Without objection, it will be submitted. Thank you.

The truth is that the majority of people on the autism spectrum can do all the things that you have mentioned.

Of course they can and I never said they couldn't.

Some people with disabilities do need direct care to assist them with activities like going to the bathroom, but that does not mean that they are somehow less than or unable to lead fulfilling and productive lives as you have implied. I'm reclaiming my time. I'm asking you here today, Secretary, to apologize for spreading lies about people with autism and their families. Will you apologize for those remarks that you've made?

Of course, if you let me explain, I'm happy to. I was talking about people with profound autism, not people who are, you know, who have lower impact autism. But I'm talking about people who are non-verbal, non-toilet trained, head-banging, stimming, toe-walking.

Okay, then since you are explaining what you really meant, since you're explaining what you really meant, can you apologize to the thousands of families that do not believe what you're just telling us now?

No, because if you look at my comments, it was clear who I was talking about.

You refuse to apologize. I find that very, very sad. I find that very, very sad. It should be very easy for you to apologize if that's not in fact what you meant.

Those are crocodile tears, Congresswoman.

I'm very, and for all the families that have children with autism, I'm very sad to hear you say that because those families are dealing with the kinds of conditions that many people just don't even understand.

If you want to deal with autism, come and talk to me. If you want to help, stop keep talking.

I'm reclaiming my time. The President is trying to close the Department of Education. If that happens, services provided under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, including special ed, may move under your jurisdiction. This is unacceptable for so many reasons, but one of the most important reasons is this: no parent wants their son or daughter's education to be in the hands of a man who openly admits that he does not believe in their children. And I yield.

The gentlelady's time has expired. I now recognize the gentlelady from Illinois, Ms. Miller.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Secretary, would you like to respond further?

I was very clear in my remarks that I was talking about people, about children who have profound autism. Those children are as I described them. And in fact, yesterday, a man, a Democrat, came up to me and thanked me for what I said. I've had hundreds of people thank me because these are hidden people. They are silent. Parents are so consumed by caring for them that they can't even get out and advocate. They need a voice, and I've given them that voice, and thousands of people have thanked me for it.

Thank you, Mr. Secretary. And I'm so grateful for the work that you and President Trump are doing to make America healthy again. And I just want to thank you for giving credibility to my healthy diet. I like to eat sauerkraut for breakfast also.

I don't like it, but I gag it down.

Well, we can learn to like it. Your department, Mr. Secretary, has implemented much-needed reforms to programs like Head Start and the Child Care Development Block Grant to ensure federal dollars are going to those who need it most, not to illegal aliens who are seeking to further defraud our government. HHS has also upheld parental rights and biological sanity by rescinding a Biden regulation that required foster parents to socially transition a confused child. Additionally, the department has enforced President Trump's executive order that protects children from chemical and surgical mutilation, ensuring that tax dollars are not used to fund puberty blockers or sex-rejecting procedures. Mr. Secretary, thank you for following through on your pledge to make America healthy again by improving school lunches and ensuring that harmful dyes and chemicals are removed from our foods. I'm also pleased to see HHS accommodating religious and health exemptions and holding manufacturers accountable for vaccine injuries and deaths. Furthermore, Mr. Secretary, you and President Trump have done a lot of work to eliminate DEI at the Department of Health and Human Services and instead hire employees based solely on merit. To make America great again, we need to make meritocracy great again. I am hopeful that we can continue to collaborate on these efforts and codify these important changes. Lastly, I want to address the abortion pill. We both consider it harmful to public health. It's a drug that we both agree needs to be regulated. Not only does the abortion pill end the life of an innocent unborn child, but it also endangers the life of the mother. Since the abortion drug approval, Presidents Obama and Biden continued to whittle away safety requirements, putting women at increased risk. In fact, at least 10 percent of women who take the pill experience sepsis, infection, hemorrhaging, and other serious life-threatening events. Pro-abortion states are circumventing the laws of pro-life states by mailing abortion drugs across state lines. Considering this, please, for the sake of women, I hope that we can continue building on your work at HHS by releasing the study on the abortion pill and reinstating the in-person dispensing requirements that were rescinded by the Biden administration, making it very dangerous for our women, for young women. Thank you again for your time, Mr. Secretary, and I'd like to yield the remainder of my time to you to make any comments that you have.

Well, thank you very much, Congresswoman. I can't comment on mifepristone because it's under litigation now. We've been advised by the Office of General Counsel that they don't want me talking about it at all. But thank you for your concerns. I share President Trump's concern that we can't be a moral nation with 2.1 million abortions every year. Well, thank you very much, Congresswoman. I can't comment on mifepristone because it's under litigation now. We've been advised by the Office of General Counsel that they don't want me talking about it at all. But thank you for your concerns. I share President Trump's concern that we can't be a moral nation with 2.1 million abortions every year and that the government has an obligation to protect women and babies.

Yes, and when the government promotes it and pays for it and lies to women, we know for a fact that at least 80 percent of women, when they have an ultrasound, when they are given the information on the development of the child, when they are given the support and information on how to access help, that they will choose life and not abortion. And I don't know why this is the only medical procedure that I know of that we withhold information from the patient so that we can tip the scales to a certain choice. The left is not pro-choice, they are pro-abortion. Thank you.

The gentlelady's time has expired. I now recognize the gentlelady from Michigan, Ms. Stevens.

Well, thank you, Mr. Chair, for holding this hearing. And Mr. Secretary, it is in fact true, I come from the great state of Michigan. And as you enter your second year as our nation's Health and Human Services Secretary, I just had a few things I wanted to take through with you here today. So in early 2025, after your confirmation, measles cases spiked in the United States to the highest levels since 1991. Last year, we had over 2,200 cases in America. Three people died. Two were children. Do I have that correct? Because according to the CDC and the American Academy of Pediatrics, I do.

That epidemic started before I came in.

During this same time, you questioned the effectiveness of the measles vaccine. And then in September, your hand-picked vaccine panel voted against recommending the combined measles vaccine for children under four. This is true?

It was dangerous.

We know now that over 90 percent of measles cases in 2025 were among people who were unvaccinated or whose vaccination status was unknown. That's correct? According to the CDC, it is. In just the first three and a half months of 2026, the year we're in right now, we've already seen an additional 1,700 measles cases. I assume you're aware of this, according to the CDC.

There's a global epidemic.

You have also pushed vitamin A as a treatment for measles. That is correct?

Every major health organization in the world recommends it.

According to the American Poison Centers, vitamin A overexposure among children increased by nearly 40 percent in this timeframe. Children in the hospitals with both measles and unsafe levels of vitamin A has occurred, correct?

I'm not recommending unsafe levels. I'm recommending what every major international health organization recommends.

The American Poison Centers, the American Poison Centers agrees. You characterized your response to one outbreak in Texas as a model for the rest of the world, even as the number of measles cases climbed. As Secretary of Health and Human Services, have you ever taken steps to undermine medical guidelines rooted in science? Because we can look at your record, sir.

No, I have not.

I serve on the Science Committee. At the beginning of this year, the CDC tried to slash the childhood vaccine schedule from 17 recommended vaccines to 11 before it was blocked by a judge. Hepatitis A, B, RSV, multiple vaccines were demoted. Do you dispute this, sir?

You think that we should recommend interventions that have not been safety tested?

These vaccines have saved countless lives. A 2024 study estimates that childhood vaccines have saved 1.1 million children's lives and prevented more than 500 million illnesses in the last three decades. Doctors, researchers, and medical experts have spent years working to not only understand illnesses, but also prevent them. Your actions restricting these vaccines have a grave impact on our country. And while you have waged war against established medical science, you've also attacked life-saving research on cancer and Alzheimer's. You have implemented measures that have raised costs, kicked families off their insurance, and made it harder to get coverage. You've devastated rural hospitals. Look, to top it off, Mr. Secretary, I got a copy of H.R. 944. Do you know what it is? It's your impeachment articles, sir. You have abused your office, you have gutted America's public health, and you have sacrificed our leadership in medical research and innovation. Americans today are less safe under your watch. Children are dying of diseases that we thought we had eradicated. You can smirk, sir, but I answer to the people of Michigan and they have told me: you should be ashamed, you should resign, and if you refuse, Congress should remove you from office. I yield back.

Is that a rhetorical question?

The gentlelady's time has expired. I now recognize the gentleman from Missouri, the good doctor Onder.

Thank you, Mr. Secretary. Thank you for being here. I'm glad my colleague got her little X clip there to, you know, hopefully it'll go viral for her like she intended. Secretary, thank you so much for your work on just so many areas, but one of the things I wanted to highlight today was your work on prior authorization that was used too often to deny patients of the care they need. But I think what we're seeing, I am a practicing physician, practice very little now that I'm in Congress, but now more and more we're seeing threats to patient access because insurers are allowing doctors to give patients the care they need but then denying payment for those cares. And this isn't the usual, you know, fight over physicians getting reimbursed. An example from my own specialty, I've been contacted by dozens of allergist-immunologists around the country that United Healthcare is claiming to follow Medicare, dishonestly claiming to follow Medicare on allergy immunotherapy reimbursement, allergy shots, and completely denying care for that very life-changing reimbursement for that very life-changing treatment. Given the market power of United Healthcare, this will put this particular therapy out of business within, I would say, six months to a year if UHC's policy continues for 45 million United Healthcare insured patients. So I think we need to watch that, not only the barriers to care up front, but if insurers can arbitrarily use their market power to deny reimbursement, that care will go away likewise. But, yeah.

Yeah, I mean, I have children with anaphylactic allergies.

Yes.

And some of them have benefited from these allergen medications.

Yes.

I have a son who literally lost his peanut allergy, which every doctor told him would never happen.

Right. Oh, yeah, that's oral immunotherapy.

Yes.

That's oral immunotherapy, which is relatively new, and I don't think any insurer actually reimburses for that. But and then aeroallergen immunotherapy, pollen, mold, dust, and so on, that used to treat asthma, sinus disease, allergic diseases, is mostly what United right now is.

That is the first I've heard of it. And I have two guys who are sitting behind me, Chris Klump and Ken Callahan, who will be interested in helping you with this. Let's get them together with your staff.

I appreciate that, Mr. Secretary. And I want to commend you and my colleague Representative Miller highlighted this, your work to protect kids from mutilating transgender procedures. Of course, I think most impactful, immediately impactful, was the denial of Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement to hospitals who insist on mutilating kids despite the science, including the recent Finland study. But one thing that one thing that really just monumental development I think is the executive order that President Trump transmitted last January. It had a number of components, including directing the HHS study that came out later last year, but also directed the Department of Justice to work on a bill to create strict liability for those healthcare providers who would exploit our kids with mutilating transgender procedures. I am honored to be carrying that bill in the House. It's the Chloe Cole Act. Senator Blackburn is carrying in the Senate. I believe that strict liability, the ability of parents and children, young adults to hold those who exploited them with these mutilating procedures accountable could be very impactful, just as we saw the AMA and the plastic surgeons change their position on mutilating procedures after the big verdict in New York. Do you think it's time that we be able to hold those who harm our children in this way strictly accountable?

It makes a lot of sense to me. There's no, I mean, the science is so clear that this is a harmful procedure with very little evidence of any benefits. We'll work with you on that.

No, I appreciate that. And you know, the one talking point that these transgender doctors, I have a hard time even calling them doctors, but these quacks say is this is going to improve kids' mental health, prevent suicide.

Well, there's no evidence.

There's no evidence of that. And the Finland study showed that girls who are gender confused who undergo these procedures, their serious mental health issues double, and boys, they go up sixfold. So I think there's never been a good evidence, and now there's abundant evidence that we're doing more mental health harm than good. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I thank the gentleman. His time has expired. I now recognize the gentleman from Texas, Mr. Casar.

Good morning. Secretary Kennedy, I have a few questions about who you're meeting with and talking to as you make this nation's healthcare policy and health policy. According to reports, you and President Donald Trump met with the CEOs of Pfizer, Eli Lilly, Pharma, and others at Mar-a-Lago. Is that correct?

Yes.

And you've also met with the CEOs of Pepsi and Tyson and Kellogg's. Is that correct, Mr. Secretary?

We met with people on both sides of the issue. Yes, of course.

The CEO of.

We're going to meet with industry.

And the CEO of Starbucks as well, is that correct?

Yeah.

Thank you. Do you know how many billionaires you've met with in your time in office so far?

I would have no idea.

Well, at least at a cabinet meeting, there's of course Donald Trump, Mr. Lutnick, Ms. McMahon, Mr. Musk, so at least four or five. So we've established here you've met with a good number of CEOs, some billionaires. I hear you've even met with Kid Rock. So here's my question. The Trump policy that passed through the Congress was to give some of these ultra-wealthy people a tax cut. And part of paying for it, the big ugly bill gives the ultra-wealthy a massive tax cut. It's well documented. But part of what pays for it is kicking 15 million Americans off of their affordable healthcare. And you're Secretary of Health. So here's my question. You've met with the CEOs, you've met with some billionaires. How many people have you met with, how many Americans have you met with that have lost or are about to lose their health insurance?

Well, I have I've met with the advocacy community on virtually everything that we regulate. I've met with more tribes and tribal leaders than any HHS secretary in history.

And I'm grateful for your meeting with tribes and advocacy organizations. But have you met with everyday Americans who have lost their health insurance just this last year?

I've met with every I meet with everyday Americans every day.

And have you had conversations with those Americans who will lose their health insurance this coming year or next year because of the cuts to Medicaid? Have you met with people who have lost their health insurance?

Well, first of all, there are no cuts in Medicaid. There are no cuts in Medicaid. Look at the CBO report from this week. We are increasing Medicaid spending by 47 percent over the next 10 years.

So we've got so over a trillion dollars comes out over the next 10 years. Report after report says 15 million 15 million people could lose their health insurance.

We are increasing spending by 47 percent. How is that a cut?

Okay, let's talk about.

That is only a cut in Washington, D.C.

Have you met with, again, have you met with any of the 1.4 million people who have lost their health insurance just this last year from dropping off of Obamacare? Have you sat down and talked to those folks about the fact they won't have their health insurance?

They're almost all illegal immigrants.

Oh, well, you know what, it sounds like you haven't met with folks like Porsha in my district.

We found 1.5 million illegal immigrants illegally collecting Medicaid.

No, no, no. Mr. Secretary, there are people like Porsha in Buda, Texas, whose health insurance costs went from $100 a month to $500 a month. People like my constituent Shawna in San Marcos, Texas, her premium went from 250 to 750 a month. Now $500 a month may not be a lot to you or to some of the billionaires that y'all are talking to, but for these moms with kids, they've lost their health insurance this last year. So how many have you had a conversation with? How many people have you sat down with that have said, Mr. Secretary, I lost my health insurance this last year? What are we going to do about it?

87 percent of the people who are on Obamacare are paying less than $96 a month. 54 percent of the people who are on Obamacare today are paying less than $50 a month.

Well and good for us to talk about Obamacare, Obamacare policy, but the question it sounds like the answer.

And by the way, the Democrats had three chances to make.

We can talk all we want about the past.

The tax credits permanent. Why didn't you do it?

We can talk about.

Why didn't you do it when you had the power to do it?

Mr. Secretary, just like you, I'm I'm new here. I'm responsible for what's happening right here and now.

Go tell that to your colleague.

My question, Mr. Secretary, is have you met with anybody that's lost their health insurance? And it sounds like the answer is zero. So my question was, you've had time to meet with the billionaires, I know it's a lot of fun to meet with Kid Rock.

That's not true. I have met with people who.

Who have lost their health insurance because of the policy from this last year?

Yeah, people have come up to me and said that they've lost their health insurance and I talk to them.

And and what have you said to them? How can you explain to them how as you're trying to make America healthy, that they now can't see a doctor anymore because of the policy?

I try to find I try to help them point them to other options. And President Trump is trying.

So when somebody so when somebody's health insurance costs goes up $500 a month because of Donald Trump's policy, I don't see how you could honestly tell them.

The insurance the primary reason. It is the Democratic policy to benefit billionaires. The health insurance companies' stocks raised by 1,000 percent after Obamacare was passed. The money was not going to Americans, it was going to them, and it was you who did it.

The gentleman's time has expired. We need to move on.

Chairman, I just it just sounds like he's met with nobody and been able to explain to them why it's okay that this policy kicks them off their healthcare.

I now recognize the gentleman from North Carolina, Mr. Harris.

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and Secretary Kennedy, thank you so much for being here today. I know that my Republican colleagues and I have admired your work on making America healthy again and really cutting down on the waste, fraud, and abuse in many of our government programs. Since President Trump was sworn into office on January 20, his entire administration, as you know, has worked diligently toward the goal of improving our federal government's efficiency. I happen to serve on the subcommittee for higher education and workforce development, and a strategy that the administration has used to improve efficiency and interagency agreements are of great interest to me. Between the Department of Education and the Department of Health and Human Services, I believe three IAAs, titled the Education Department, Health and Human Services Foreign Medical Accreditation Agreement, the Child Care Access Means Parents in School Agreement, and the Family Engagement and School Support Agreement, have been implemented between the Department of Education and Health and Human Services. My first question to you is how has that transition gone of moving education programs like C-CAMPUS and NCFMEA from the Department of Education to Health and Human Services in your opinion?

Well, so far we I have not heard of any bumps. I you know, I can't tell you all the details of the move, but I have not I will hear it if there's a problem.

Right, I understand that. So when discussions regarding the IAAs began, were there some specific benefits or things that you saw that Health and Human Services could actually bring to these education department programs? I know you mentioned earlier some of them just belonged or fit better in Health and Human Services. What are some benefits you think maybe we've been able to.

Well, in terms of, you know, the foreign policy issues, CDC, we're in 64 countries around the world. We have one of CDC's major portfolio items is foreign policy. And so international relations is what we do, and that fits perfectly with what we're doing. The other functions are mainly healthcare functions. They're related to public health and disabilities and special education, and those are those fit perfectly, align perfectly with what we're already doing, and what we think we probably can do better than the Department of Education.

Right. Well, with those three inter-action agencies or interagency actions in place, are there plans for HHS to enter other IAAs either with the Department of Education or other agencies that maybe as this efficiency effort is being made that you can see coming in the future that will help improve government efficiency?

Yes, there are. And we are talking to other agencies about that now. It's not something that I would be prepared to go into details.

I understand completely, understand. I also want to switching gears real quickly, I've been encouraged to see the administration working to restore common sense policies across all agencies, and it's already been touched on by several of my colleagues here today of those one of those policies is prohibiting the transgender medical interventions on children. It was also referenced a little earlier today the executive order, and the executive order from January 28 states, "It's the policy of the United States that it will not fund, sponsor, promote, assist, or support the so-called transition of a child from one sex to another, and it will rigorously enforce all laws that prohibit or limit these destructive and life-altering procedures," in quote. Now some reports that I have seen have shown that many hospitals and health systems have actually temporarily or indefinitely rolled back the transgender surgery and treatment for minors and some young adults because of these executive orders. Just quickly asking from your perspective, does that match these reports I've seen to the general trend that you're seeing as a Secretary of Health?

Yeah, we're seeing that trend across the board, and particularly with the suspension of Medicaid and Medicare funding for the hospitals that host these procedures. I think that's going to have a universal impact.

Well, I want to join my other colleagues that have mentioned it and thanking you for your role as the Secretary of Health and Human Services to take action to end chemical and surgical mutilation of children, and I'm very grateful for your service. And with that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back.

I thank the gentleman. His time hasn't expired. And I now recognize the gentlelady from Pennsylvania, Ms. Lee.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. So this is Black Maternal Health Week, so I'll just start there. Secretary Kennedy, I'm sure you're aware that Black women are at least three times more likely to die from pregnancy-related causes than white women. The vast majority of those deaths are preventable. Black women in my district are more likely to die during pregnancy than their peers in 97 percent of U.S. cities. Your written testimony mentions maternal and child health four times. But from what I've seen, the NIH canceled grants researching Black maternal health. Your administration's fiscal year 27 budget proposes eliminating Healthy Start, which is one of the federal government's primary community-based maternal health programs. And you've made it a priority of HHS to end diversity, equity, and inclusion. So yes or no, my question for you is if a medical school or public health school educates students about addressing the Black maternal mortality crisis, would you consider that an illegal DEI?

No.

No, you would not?

No.

Great. I do hope for the medical schools, the universities, and the accreditors your administration has been threatening that they're watching this and take this directive to continue teaching about and addressing the Black maternal mortality crisis. And I expect your agency to restore and expand funding and support for that work. Also yes or no, do you think consuming more protein and avoiding Tylenol will prevent Black women from dying three times more likely during the pregnancy?

I doubt it. Tylenol doesn't kill...

So then why are you putting forth, why aren't you putting forth serious policies that actually address the health crises in this country instead of just these unserious conspiracy theories and this wellness influencer mess that we're in?

Do you want me to answer that question or are you just talking?

No, it's a question.

We're doing more on maternal health than any other administration.

No, I said Black maternal health.

On maternal health.

Black maternal health.

That includes Blacks and whites and...

But the thing is is that they're actually not the same outcomes, which means that we need specific and intentional interventions for Black maternal health and Black infants.

Can I finish? I'm sorry.

Are you going to answer that?

Yeah, we have a right now we've implemented a perinatal pilot project that we're in 220 hospitals around the country and we have reduced maternal health mortalities by 42 percent at those hospitals by providing them protocols.

Can you please share what the reduction has been for Black maternal health?

Across the board it's 42 percent.

But Black maternal health still has worse outcomes than other people.

I wouldn't know, it helps everybody.

But it isn't. Do you object to that? Okay, thank you. It is not, I do want to just for the record state that it does not help everyone. Your agency told programs to remove a list of nearly 200 words and phrases from their funding applications, including the word Black. Do you have an idea of how we could solve the Black maternal mortality crisis if we can't say Black?

President Trump is trying to end division in this country, not sow division like what's been done during the last four years. That's what DEI did, it divided people, it polarized people.

No, no, no, no, no. We're not talking about eviction, we're talking about healthcare.

I'm talking about DEI.

We're talking about healthcare disparities. So what we're asking is is if you attack DEI and then we have a crisis that impacts one population over another, but you cannot direct specific spending or research or interventions to that population, how do you solve the problem?

Do you think the federal government should be paying for DEI?

I think the federal government has a vested interest in ensuring that its citizens survive childbirth.

Well, we are meeting that obligation.

We are not.

I can explain to you how we are if you...

You have not done so so far. But also I would say that you know, we can improve healthcare for everybody at the same time as helping the people who are most likely to die. That's what DEI, well first of all, DEI makes sure that we have Black doctors or women doctors or that. We're talking about the fact that we have a mortality rate that is not matched by any other country as what we would call developed as ours. Really quickly, in yesterday's Ways and Means Committee hearing you denied saying that every Black kid is now just a standard put on Adderall, SSRIs, benzos, which are known to induce violence and those kids are going to have a chance to go somewhere else and get reparented. Why did you deny saying this?

Why did I deny payment?

No, why did you deny that you said that every Black kid is now just standard put on Adderall, SSRIs, benzos, which are known to induce violence and that you would rehome them?

Well, it's largely true that Black kids because it's easier to handle people and the a lot of the public...

And you're going to rehome them?

No, I never said that we should rehome them. Illegal drugs, psychiatric...

Gentlelady's time has expired.

Okay, I just wanted to know if that was him for the record. Thank you. I yield back.

I thank the gentlelady. And I recognize the gentleman from California, Mr. Kiley.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Morning Mr. Secretary. I just wanted to first start by echoing part of what my colleague from Texas said about the expiration of the ACA subsidies. This is a serious issue for a lot of people in this country right now who have seen escalating an escalating increase in their premium payments. I will say I think it represented a failure on both sides to come together and find a solution. I had a bipartisan bill, there were a couple of others on this issue, but partisan politics got in the way and now people are having to pay a lot more and things are becoming even more unaffordable. So I do hope that we can still even at this late hour find a way to solve this problem and make people whole. But what I actually want to talk to you about today is the new food pyramid, which you know, I think is one of the most important documents our government has issued in a long time. And there's a website to go along with it realfood.gov that is I think the most user-friendly government website I've ever seen. I'd highly recommend people check it out, realfood.gov. And regardless of what anyone thinks about you Mr. Secretary, about the President or about me or anyone on this committee, I would hope that this is something that we can all come together around because some of the statistics you've already cited and that are in your supporting documents here are truly jarring, you know, 70 plus percent of adults in the US being overweight, way more than any other developed country, third of adolescents have pre-diabetes. As a result, we have lower life expectancy, maybe two and a half years of reduced life expectancy because of these issues. Chronic disease consumes as you mentioned 90 percent of our overall spending. So you've addressed some of this already, but can you just explain briefly, you know, how it is that our food supply in the US is linked to all of these problems?

Yeah, I mean there are a confluence of different forces, but I think probably the most potent driver was the GRAS standards. The GRAS is a loophole known as generally recognized as safe and it was put into the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act in 1948 to allow companies to include ingredients that were traditional like vinegar and salt and wheat and these kind of things. But it was hijacked by the food industry so that they're now using it to put any chemical that they make in a lab without even informing us what it is. So we now have 10,000 ingredients in our food and we have no idea about the safety of almost any of them. The Europeans don't have this and they have only 400 ingredients in their food. So that explains why Americans partially why Americans are so sick. And then the other thing was the food pyramid itself was the creation of corruption. The people who were writing it were captured by lobbyists, certain companies that were trying to promote margarines and ultra-processed foods and to get rid of protein. And that's what they did. They gave false studies that were fraudulent that said that protein caused heart attacks, there's zero evidence of that. So they took protein off and as a result today 70 percent of the calories that Americans eat are ultra-processed food and it's just poison.

So that's why you've inverted this and the sort of overarching principle as it suggests is to eat real foods and then you have, you know, various guidelines that people can check out, eat the amount that's right for you, prioritize proteins, consume dairy, eat vegetables and fruits throughout the day, incorporate healthy fats, focus on whole grains, limit highly processed foods, especially added sugar. Notice the yogurt here is unsweetened. So the question is then how do we actually, you know, cause this to compel change across the country? That's a very, you know, challenging task, but we do have a pretty good maybe precedent for this when it comes to cigarette use, you know, we've seen a reduction of maybe four out of every 10 adults smoking in the 60s to one out of every 10 adults now. So is there are there any lessons to be learned here and what do you think the keys are to actually compelling adoption of these habits and practices, changes in institutions in a way that will actually reverse these long-term trends?

I mean we don't want to use compulsion, Americans should always have choice. If you want to eat a Krispy Kreme donut, you should be able to do it. But we have the power of the subsidy program, $405 million a day from USDA to WIC, Head Start, school lunches, Indian tribal services and we are using those to drive changes in the dietary culture. So for example, I'll just give you one example. Brooke Rollins has required that every retailer that gives out that accepts food stamps has to double the amount of real food in their facility. And that's just one example, but there are many, many, many. We're changing food in the military, we're changing hospital food, we're doing this across the board to drive these changes and create a revolution in food culture in this country.

That's fantastic and yeah, the more we can do that to encourage this pyramid to become more widely known and practiced, I think it'll benefit our country enormously. So thank you.

Gentleman's time has expired. Even though I'm grateful to hear about Krispy Kreme donuts. Now I recognize the gentleman from New York, Mr. Mannion.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Mr. Secretary for your testimony today. Earlier in this hearing representative DeSaulnier had referenced Truth Social posts from the President and I believe I heard your response to be that he was the most sane President. Do you care to comment any further or is that your position?

Well, if you look at that Truth Social post, I was pointing out the last line of it says God bless the Iranian people. He was sending a nuanced message. He was sending a message of brute force and violence to the mullahs to incentivize them to change, but also sending a message of love and compassion to the Iranian people. So you can look at it and say oh it's insane that he'd make this kind of threat. But he's a dealmaker, he's a bargainer.

Thank you, Mr. Secretary. I appreciate that. More sane than your uncle?

I think he's very, very sane.

So I grew up in a place called Tipperary Hill.

I'd say he's more sane than Uncle Joe. Uncle Joe Biden.

Your uncle, your father, were heroes to the Irish Catholic community. Your uncle, a Purple Heart recipient, a World War II veteran and naval commander, a hero, a member of the House of Representatives and the United States Senate, and a president whose term ended in assassination and is widely regarded as someone who navigated our country through possibly the most challenging time of the Cuban Missile Crisis. There were two pictures that hung in the homes of Irish Catholics in my neighborhood, separate pictures. One of your uncle, President John Fitzgerald Kennedy, and the other of the baby Jesus, the light of the world, two separate pictures. So I thank you for being here today. I have various concerns about the direction of HHS under your leadership, but today I'd like to focus on some particularly harmful attacks made on the disability community. Your actions and statements, Mr. Secretary, have contributed to real fears, anxieties, and consequences for millions of families. I know some of my colleagues have raised these with you as well, but I want to again point out some of the statements that I think reveal a bias and a credibility issue. You've previously said that people with autism, and again, I acknowledge your statements previously in this hearing that these are the most profoundly autistic individuals, but the impact it has on families and statements that they will never hold a job, never play baseball, never write a poem, never go out on a date, or never use a toilet unassisted, those are incredibly impactful. Additional statements that they, individuals with autism and the epidemic that exists is catastrophic to our country and destroys families. As these words weren't insulting enough, you've also insinuated and insulted the intelligence of American people by linking autism to vaccines, Tylenol, and circumcision. Mr. Kennedy, not long ago, any of these claims would have been disqualifying for someone in your position, especially given a lack of scientific or medical training on your part. These would have prompted dismissal, and we would have dismissed these statements as ridiculous and unverified theories. But in this administration, falsehoods are routinely given a platform and are perpetuated. Incompetence is often rewarded, as is loyalty, and there's very rarely accountability for statements such as this. Mr. Secretary, as a science teacher at a college level for almost 30 years and the former chairman of the Disabilities Committee in the New York State Senate, I have worked intensively with individuals with disabilities and their families, understanding their concerns, so that experience goes back a long time. And as a country, we have made massive strides in improving disability policy. But now, under your watch, we're moving in the wrong direction. A $1 trillion cut to Medicaid that you have let happen and have tried to downplay is dismantling many important programs, including the Administration for Community Living at HHS, which oversees programs supporting seniors and individuals with disabilities. And now, you and Secretary McMahon seem to be working behind closed doors to dismantle the Department of Education and expand HHS's role in key educational programs. Unlike you, career public servants at the Department of Education have worked for decades to develop expertise, expand educational opportunity, and protect the rights of students with disabilities. I cannot believe that we are talking about shifting critical programs that are enshrined into law and into the Department of Education over to HHS. In lieu of going over on my comments, I will end my time here. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Gentleman's time has expired. Yields back. I now recognize the gentleman from Pennsylvania and the champion of whole milk, Mr. Thompson.

Well, thank you, Chairman. Mr. Secretary, good to see you again.

You too.

Always appreciate the opportunities to be able to work with you and your leadership and your team that you've put together. My first question really is, it's about the Community Services Block Grant program. That's a program I feel just very passionate about that program. It's the original anti-poverty program. And really doesn't matter what the source that led somebody into poverty, it really helps to provide a pathway out of poverty, which is I think this is what we want for folks, right? To be able to realize the American dream. And certainly an important program in my state of Pennsylvania, helping low-income individuals and families get on a path to financial independence. And currently over $13.5 million in fiscal year 2026 congressionally allocated funds to my state are being held up at OMB. And Secretary Kennedy, I just seek your assistance in working at committing to help immediately release the five months' worth of CSBG funds currently stalled at OMB. We need them to get those funds out into those communities so helping to lift people out of poverty, providing a pathway forward.

Thank you for that comment, Congressman. We're working as hard as we can to get that money out the door.

Well, I appreciate that. Anything I can help with on that, I'm all in. It seems very effective. We're actually working to reauthorize Community Services Block Grant program and reauthorization's important, you know, making sure it's current. On the question of Krispy Kreme donuts, I'd have to say only with a glass of whole milk. That would be the best combination. Now, I've worked for over a decade to restore whole milk in our schools' cafeterias and was honored that my legislation, Whole Milk for Healthy Kids Act, was signed into law by President Trump in January, allowing schools the flexibility to offer flavored and non-flavored whole and 2 percent milk. It's common sense. Really common sense and science. Secretary Kennedy, I was pleased that the dietary guidelines for Americans that were released earlier this year recommended whole full-fat milk. Question for you, how would including whole milk in school meal programs improve nutritional outcomes for children?

It's absolutely critical. It's criminal that we took it out of the schools for two generations. We have two generations of kids who were not growing up with the best access to the finest source of micronutrients that build their brains, build their bodies, build their bones. We're now putting it back in the schools. You know, some of the schools are having trouble because they have contracts with vendors that don't include it, but they are, we're working with them to make sure that they all are serving whole milk, and the kids love it. The kids are drinking it because it tastes better. And you know, people's bodies crave fats, and you have healthy fats in whole milk that you can't get anywhere else, and it tastes better than, you know, 2 percent or skim milk. The kids love it much more. And it's just, it's crazy that we deprived all of those generations of kids of this critical food source.

Yeah, absolutely. And I know that your colleague and a good friend of mine, Secretary Brooke Rollins, is preparing, I anticipate hopefully in the next couple weeks, to see published in a congressional record just clarity that this will apply not just to school lunches, but for breakfast and quite frankly anytime that meals are served within the school system. Any thoughts on what steps that can we take to help schools successfully transition to offering whole milk?

The biggest help we need, the biggest impediment to getting good food into the schools is that a lot of schools have abandoned their kitchens. You know, when I was a kid, every school had a kitchen. And that's not true today. And you know, we need to be able to help them build kitchens and to get, to purchase cutlery and to purchase cutting boards and all the things they need to actually be making good food there. What we're finding is that the food that, good food is actually in many cases cheaper than the processed and ultra-processed foods that they were getting. It's much cheaper than fast food. In fact, our program in the military, we're shifting, PETAX is shifting the military from the terrible, appalling food that they had that only a third of the troops were eating and we were paying $18.50 a day. We're now on five bases, about to go into 20 bases with good, rich, whole food, a lot of it locally sourced, and we're feeding them at $10 a day. So it's, you know, good food is not more expensive as long as you're cooking it at home.

Gentleman's time has expired. While we'd like to talk more about Krispy Kreme and chocolate whole milk, we're going to move now to the gentlelady from Connecticut, Mrs. Hayes.

Thank you. Good afternoon. Firearms are the leading cause of death for children and teenagers in the United States. Pediatricians, trauma surgeons, emergency physicians, and public health experts have repeatedly described firearm injury as a public health emergency. As my colleague stated, when you were asked during your confirmation hearing if you believe firearm violence was a public health crisis, you answered with one word: no. You went on to say you believe that HHS can explore solutions for the behavioral health and substance abuse epidemic without compromising sacred rights and freedom. According to EdWeek, which measures school shootings at K-12 schools resulting in injury or death, there have been 26 school shootings since you were sworn in. According to the Gun Violence Archive, which measures any gun discharge on school grounds, there have been 240 incidents since you were sworn in. In 2026, we have seen school shootings in Rockland, Maryland; Detroit, Michigan; Crandall, Texas; Bulverde, Texas; Ferguson, Missouri; Oklahoma; Bethesda, Maryland. As you stated, I understand that you don't have full jurisdiction over the law enforcement side, the DOJ, the FBI. And since this committee has refused to respond to my requests for a hearing on school shootings, I want to ask you about the things you do have direct jurisdiction over. HHS holds jurisdiction over public health aspects, focusing on mental health services, trauma support for survivors, data collection, and data collection to prevent gun violence. Since under your tenure, we've seen threats of cuts to SAMHSA, cuts to school-based mental health programs, cuts to the CDC staffers who work on research and prevention, cuts to bipartisan community violence prevention programs. They've been terminated. So Mr. Secretary, since you were sworn in and now have full visibility of the harm of gun violence to children, has your position changed? Do you believe gun violence is a public health crisis?

I believe it's a public health crisis, but it's not, we don't have jurisdiction to enforce the... I believe it's a public health crisis but it's not we don't have jurisdiction to

The things you do have jurisdiction over. The things you do have jurisdiction over.

And we're doing those. So we're doing more studies on the etiology and causes of gun violence, the first that have ever been done in years.

Sir, I have to stop you. I only have five minutes and I apologize, but...

You asked the questions, so I answered it.

Well, I want to know specifically why the research and the funding has been cut for these programs that address trauma, that address student survivors, that address school-based mental health programs for students who are affected by gun violence. You're putting out all of these programs, all of these studies about keeping kids healthy. Keeping kids alive is part of keeping them healthy.

And we're trying to do that by doing the studies to understand why people commit mass shootings.

But you've also cut funding.

That has not been done before.

You've also cut funding.

It's being done by the Trump administration.

Sir, I'm going to have to ask you to exercise some restraint. You're a Kennedy. You know how oversight hearings work. And we don't want the second graders to think that your interruptions are rude, disrespectful, or impatient. So I'm going to have to ask you to just allow me to finish my question.

Well, don't pretend you're asking a question when you're making a speech.

In my home state of Connecticut, where I was a school teacher in the classroom on the day 20 children were slaughtered and six educators. We worked really hard to see firsthand how to invest in our communities and provide prevention. Connecticut has created some of the strongest school-based violence prevention systems in the country through multidisciplinary threat assessment teams, early intervention programs, and the partnerships that help schools identify concerning behavior. I put forth the bill, the School Violence Prevention Act, to begin to collect data to see how we can have federal programs to address these traumatic outcomes for kids. Many of the things that we fought for in the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act have been cut. So I have to ask you, what have you done to address the health of children? You point out so many other things about the food they eat, all these other things. What have you done to keep kids safe from gun violence outside of commissioning a study?

As I said, we have no law enforcement, the Congress has not given us law enforcement...

I'm not asking you about law enforcement, sir.

Well, what we do is we study issues and we study problems and we're doing that with gun violence, which has not been done before.

Can you name specifically a study that you've commissioned?

We did it, we've done, I think it's almost near completion. We did a study on school shootings to look at what the shooters have in common, what medications they may have been receiving, whether they were on SSRIs, whether they were on benzos, and we're expanding that now across the agency to do even more of those.

The gentlelady's time has expired.

I'd like more information on that study because I'm unaware of it. I yield back.

The gentlelady yields back. I now recognize the gentlelady from Arizona, Ms. Grijalva.

Thank you for your time today. I have to say, as I listen here with all the health initiatives that you're expousing, I have grave concerns about the HHS budget and the cuts that are being proposed. I spent 20 years on a school board and saw firsthand how support systems children have or don't have outside of the classroom shape their outcomes. At the most basic level, children can't go to school if they're sick, they can't learn on an empty stomach, and their families can't get ahead if they can't access healthcare. I'd like to first talk to you about your proposed cuts to medical research. I was reading an article this morning that talked about your affinity to perform your own medical research. You apparently once cut the penis off a roadkill raccoon to study them later. You speak fondly of medical research, yet your budget cuts show that the National Institutes of Health are going to get a cut of more than 12 percent. This level of cuts would halt promising research, force layoffs of scientists and research staff, and undermine America's global leadership in medical intervention and innovation. What specific diseases do you believe deserve less medical research?

DEI.

Okay, so...

We cut a billion dollars.

And do you have a specific program, a specific disease that deserves less funding? Can you identify?

I would say we are putting a billion dollars into DEI and DEI research has never cured any disease, it's never produced any new drugs.

Okay, so between February of 2025 and April of 2025, HHS canceled or froze more than $180 million in National Cancer Institute grants. Were you the one to approve these cuts to cancer grants or did that come directly from the White House?

We're giving the highest, one of the highest budget increases to NCI in this proposed budget.

Can you just answer my specific question? Were you the one who approved those cuts or did that come from the White House?

As I said, we are raising the budget for NCI for the National Cancer Institute in this budget. It's one of the only agencies throughout my sub-agencies throughout my entire agency that's receiving a raise.

So Secretary Kennedy, you have the responsibility to tell the truth to this committee and here are some examples of cuts. In April of 2025, HHS canceled an NIH grant regarding strategies to reduce cancer and chronic disease in the Arkansas Delta. In 2025, a grant selective targeting of pancreatic cancer was cut. In March of 2025, a grant, the automated digital imaging for cervical cancer screening. The list continues to go on. You've also noted that SNAP can be used to purchase whole foods. And we look at some of the recent data, just in Arizona, the district that I represent, 424 fewer people, including 180 children, have lost food assistance since the enactment of HR 1. My constituents are writing to me telling me that they're hungry and cannot afford food. As the Secretary of Health and Human Services, will you make a statement here today that you oppose hunger in this country?

Well, I oppose hunger in this country and we're the first administration to be doing something about getting actually good food.

Well, thank you. I'm grateful that you're standing against the Republican hunger cuts. And if HHS spends 21 billion on physician training, yet only one percent goes to community-based programs like teaching health centers that actually reduce primary care shortages. Why are we underinvesting in the models that work?

In for rural health?

For community health centers.

I just put $143 million into community health centers for physician retention. We also put $50 billion into the rural transformation program which has a lot of money for rural healthcare, frontline physicians to retain them, to keep them, to do residencies there. It's unprecedented.

So just so you know, only one percent of the funding that you've talked about actually goes to teaching health centers and community health centers. And health centers lower costs and improve outcomes.

I've been asked about the problem. We're trying to solve the problem of rural residencies and rural access to rural personnel and we're doing more than any administration in history to do.

So unfortunately, there are five rural health centers in Arizona that are at risk of closure because of the cuts from this administration. So what are you doing to ensure that every Medicaid patient can access a community health center?

There's 39 million Americans in community health centers and my personal belief is that it's the most effective health centers in our country. What they're doing is better than any and we're making big investments to make sure that they continue. We've raised the funding in this budget for community health centers and then I'm finding other pockets of money to funnel as I did last week, $135 million.

I would really like to see the data that shows that because the rural healthcare communities and health centers in my district are suffering greatly under this administration. Thank you and I yield back.

Well, I announced a program in Arizona last week at a community health center.

The gentlelady's time has expired and I would recommend making direct contact between the two of you. So thank you. I now recognize the gentleman from California, Mr. DeSaulnier.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Secretary, I want to start with something I think we agree on. I've had a long time since local government and in the district I represent, the East Bay of the San Francisco Bay Area, we've been leaders on attacking the tobacco industry and protecting kids in particular. So you have made a comment, which I applaud, that you wanted to wipe out e-cigarettes in the country. I put a lot of work into making sure that JUUL was held accountable for what they were doing, yet we still have almost two million American kids using illegal e-cigarettes. So where your jurisdiction is in enforcement, unfortunately you're cutting enforcement. How will you do what you have said you want to do and I believe you want to do is wipe out e-cigarette use and in this instance illegal e-cigarette use by increasing enforcement?

Do you mean vapes?

Yes.

Vapes, JUUL companies like JUUL. We are increasing enforcement. The budget increases enforcement for Chinese vapes. And I've already been, I was in Illinois a couple of weeks ago doing a major enforcement action. We confiscated about a million, Pam Bondi and I, about a million Chinese vapes. There's an argument for vapes that vapes reduce cigarette tobacco smoking, which is much worse.

No, sir. That was the argument JUUL made. And I'd be happy to have a further conversation.

I'd love to have that conversation.

All right. So on another important matter and I think and this goes to SAMHSA behavioral health, you and I have some similar family background. My dad was an alcoholic and he took his life many years ago. So since then I've spent a lot of time on behavioral health, mental health. Mr. Walberg and I have done initiatives on this and prevention. And we now have, according to the Center for Disease Control, a real mental health crisis in this country when it comes to kids. CDC did a report in the prior administration that almost half of adolescent, pre-adolescent young women, young girls, women were predisposed to depression and suicidal ideation. So how can we work together to prevent that? How can we work together to using research from SAMHSA and other research around the world to make sure we start making an impact and dropping these really serious behavioral mental health issues for future generations?

Congressman, it's a top priority for me. I would love to hear your ideas. We just announced the Great American Recovery Plan I'm working on with Catherine Burgham, with my cousin Patrick Kennedy, who you know, and with many other people who are top in their field, including I think Jonathan Sherin, who you probably know from Los Angeles. So we're looking for the best ideas and President Trump wants us to implement them. This is a issue that is a high priority for him and as you point out for me personally, I would love to talk to you about what you think that we could be doing better and if there's new ideas we want to hear them.

One of the big challenges I see both from my personal background, which I think you share parts of that certainly, is the deployment of the amazing research that NIH, SAMHSA, the University of California San Francisco not far from my district is doing remarkable work. So the deployment of that research is a real challenge. Since parity, we had a 300 percent increase in Americans asking for mental health and behavioral health services. We've had a 300 percent decrease in young people going into the field because they can't pay their student loans because the cost of school and training. I talked to two young psychologists who said they had $350,000 in student debt. They didn't have any money. They clearly had a calling to this field, but they didn't have any way that they could recover their costs. So that's another thing I think is of extreme urgency. And then lastly, in the county I represent and being a former county elected, we spent a lot of time, thanks to my predecessor Mr. Miller, former chair of this committee, doing prevention. But with the big ugly bill, we've taken all of that prevention, primary care clinics, a lot of the work you espouse. Mr. Miller was very important in changing the nutrition standards in this committee on free and reduced lunch to make sure all the things that you've talked about actually deliver, that we're bringing farm to food, really wonderful food to kids and we've changed in California. I had a bill in here about getting schools to be able to get grants for kitchen equipment that was more appropriate to your last question, more attuned to preparing food like that. I spent 35 years in the restaurant business. So changing that and changing away from prevention under the big HR 1 is a huge contradiction to what I hear you say frequently that it's about prevention and knowledge. And in the county I represent, they've already seen this huge increase and it's going larger and larger. Because all those people who we were working with in primary care and prevention are now ending up with higher acuity in the county hospital room, hospital emergency room. So if you could spend just a second talking about moving away from prevention and into crisis, which this administration's doing.

We'll have to carry it on in another format, but I think because the time has expired and we are running close to the time limit. So I now recognize the ranking member, the gentleman from Virginia, Mr. Scott.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Secretary, for being with us today. Let me make a couple of comments before I get to questions. The first is I want to join in the bipartisan support for the community service. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, Mr. Secretary, for being with us today. Let me make a couple of comments before I get to questions. The first is I want to join in the bipartisan support for the Community Services Block Grant. This is a strong program and has good support. We want to make sure that stays as strong as possible. The other is to put the savings in the HHS budget in context. We're talking about a savings in the budget of $16 billion. The big ugly bill added $3.5 trillion to the debt with interest, maybe $4 trillion. Rounding, that would be to the nearest $100 billion, so we're not even a significant part of a rounding error. But these painful cuts are still very meaningful. The gentlelady from North Carolina talked about the school meal equipment grant, which would help schools prepare healthy meals, but that program was zeroed out. Another comment, you had an exchange with the gentleman from New Jersey, Mr. Norcross, about mental health parity. We had a hearing yesterday with the Employee Benefit Security Administration where the administrator could not name any sanction he could impose to punish an insurance company for failing to comply with mental health parity. Apparently, he needs legislation because he didn't have the authority. So as you work with Mr. Norcross, I think he's got legislation pending, we may have to do legislation to fix that.

We lost our case on that, unfortunately, Congressman. We lost our case on that.

Well, we can help you fix it up with legislation. Mr. Secretary, the GAO is wrapping up responding to a request I made last year about DOJ's access to data and IT systems within many agencies, including HHS, because DOJ was having access to data in HHS that would be extremely sensitive health information, and we wanted to know what DOJ was doing with that information. Regrettably, we've been informed that the department is not fully cooperating with GAO, and one reason was given that the department has concerns about potential discrepancies between what the department produced in litigation and what it could provide to the GAO. My initial concern was, of course, that HHS was not cooperating with the GAO so it can complete its work, and now I'm concerned about whether or not the information given in litigation was actually accurate. So, Mr. Secretary, what did the department mean when it told the GAO that it could not fully cooperate or respond because it was concerned about discrepancies between what it produced in litigation and what it provided to the GAO?

You know, I don't know anything about that issue, but I will check with OGC and get back to you.

Okay. And can we get a commitment that you'll get the department to cooperate with the GAO so they can complete their work?

Of course.

Thank you. Mr. Secretary, over the last several months, the Trump administration has signed deals with 16 prescription drug companies in exchange for exemptions from the tariffs. The White House and you have claimed that these deals have secured the lowest drug prices ever. Here's the problem: we don't have any public information about the terms of the deals, so there's no way to confirm exactly what these savings might be. Will you commit to releasing the information on those 16 most favored nation agreements entered into between the Trump administration and these 16 pharmaceutical companies?

The, I can release, I mean, most of the information is public. The prices are public. The old list price is public. There's proprietary information that I cannot and business trade secrets that I cannot release. And in fact, in the Democrats' and the Inflation Reduction Act legislation, there was an NDA provision that recognized during the negotiations there was going to be the ability for HHS to deal privately.

Well, are you asking us, are you asking us to codify these agreements? You said so in your opening statement.

Yeah, I would like you to codify them.

Well, we've got to know what the, how are we going to do that without getting the agreements?

You'll know the endpoints, which is what we need to codify.

Well, if we don't, we need...

If you know what the prices should be, you can codify them. And there's nothing that prevents Congress from meeting with those companies as well. You do it all the time and you do it in secret.

You're asking us to codify agreements and won't give us what the agreements are.

We're asking you to codify a most favored nation status so that we get the lowest price of any nation in the world.

Mr. Chairman, I yield back.

I thank the gentleman. And I thank all my colleagues from both sides of the aisle for their attention to this hearing, a hearing that we've looked forward to. And so I appreciate that. And at this point, I recognize the ranking member, Mr. Scott, for his closing remarks.

Mr. Chairman, we've had I think a good exchange with the secretary. Across the political spectrum, Americans all want to do the same things. We want to be able to pay our bills, eat nutritious food, and see a doctor when we're sick. And that's why it's difficult to see that we've slashed public health, we've made healthcare less affordable, we've taken away safety net programs. The administration has undermined public health systems, wreaked havoc in the current and future generations of Americas, and the budget cuts, although they are significant and painful, don't come anywhere close to making up for the damage done to the budget in the big ugly bill. I mean, you're talking about trillions and here we're talking tens of billions, but those cuts are still extremely painful. Ultimately, the burden of the attacks will fall on the shoulders of working Americans. Food prices, energy bills, healthcare costs don't disappear because investments are not in the president's budget. The burden of those expenses will go onto working families who do not have the luxury of buying their way out of these realities. We live in the wealthiest country in the world, and yet our citizens are forced to go into debt to stay healthy. The department must remember its mission to enhance the health and well-being of all Americans, not just the wealthy few. And it's essential the department focus and calibrate its efforts to make working families' health a high priority. And the budget does not reflect that. You've got millions of people losing their healthcare under these budgets. That's going in the wrong direction. Hope we can solve that legislatively, but in the meantime, I'll just yield back.

I thank the gentleman. And I would certainly concur that I think we are on the same track that we want to succeed. We want benefits for our citizens, we want our agencies to work as well as they possibly can, we want to end problems. It's just the strategy, the philosophy that sometimes gets in our way, but readily admit the fact that we have different points of view. But I think as Americans and as members of Congress, we want to move towards success. And as I think about that, Mr. Secretary, and thank you so much for being here.

Thank you very much.

I just want to make these few statements.

I think I need to step out.

Okay. Thank you. And maybe your staff will hear my statements. As Education and Workforce Committee, we're responsible for the Education Department, a department that's been here since 1980, a long time after the start of the other department that we're dealing with today, Health and Human Services. Since 1980, we've spent $3 trillion to pay for a department that has presided over failure in our education. And we see that with our outcomes that are showing us lagging behind the world, and that shouldn't be the case here. Lagging behind in education itself, in workforce training, and in healthcare for this nation. And that is the responsibility of this committee. Our nation's health and healthcare have continued to spiral downward while spending has mushroomed. We clearly need to change our game plan, and I think what we're talking about today, sometimes talking past each other, is that it isn't just money that will bring the success. And throwing more money, as we've even heard some of our colleagues talk about needing more money, hasn't worked. And so now we have a secretary, a department, and of course an administration that wants to do things differently. And yes, they are different. But what has been being done, we can argue, has not worked, and it's cost us a lot. And we have the ability to say, at least to spin, that for instance Medicaid funding has been cut, and it hasn't. Cutting out waste, fraud, and abuse is a good thing. Accepting the fact that our Democrat colleagues put forward a three-year supplemental for Medicaid as a result of COVID that they voted on, they passed, three years, and then when we want to live under that three-year plan and accept the fact that now we move on, that's seen as a cut, when in fact it just benefited big insurance and not necessarily the people who had the needs. And so to try to restructure and become more efficient so that genuine needy individuals in whatever area, whether it's Medicaid, Medicare, autism, mental health, you name it, we become more efficient, we put it toward the right sources, we use research that puts us on the right track, and yes, we try it. I hope it works. I tend to think it will. But we're having that opportunity right now. And over the past four years, and I guess I could go back even in Republican and Democrat administrations, we have done the same old, same old, and it hasn't worked. So I appreciate the fact that today we had the Secretary in front of us talking about controversial things, talking about change, talking about doing it a new way, talking about doing it based upon research, and we can all disagree on research at times, but nonetheless, it's an attempt to say what has been done hasn't worked, it's cost us not only financially, but in lives and health, safety, security, educational acumen across our nation. We may disagree, but I think we want success. I would state that clearly for the record. Both sides of the aisle, we want to succeed. Changes are tough, but changes are underway, and I'm looking forward to seeing if they work. As I said, I think they will. Until that time, we'll have further hearings, but seeing no more questions to be asked, having gone through the time period, I call this meeting an adjournment. Thank you.