President's FY 2027 Budget Request for Health and Human Services

The Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions will please come to order. Secretary Kennedy, thank you for coming before the committee. I've been traveling, traveling my state a lot. And affordability, whether it's gasoline, groceries or healthcare is top of mind. And when patients speak to me how expensive their prescription drugs are, It resonates with them when I say, " Wait a minute. There's middlemen jacking up the price for their own profitability. My constituents' patients get that and they want help." I'll go back to my experience practicing medicine. If the patient has the power, if the patient is the reason for the care and not an excuse for the bill, then prices tend to come down. The question is, how do we achieve that? I believe the President is focused on this And Mister Secretary, I think you believe this as well. So I look forward to hearing how this administration's proposed budget makes the patient the one in charge. Now there's some common sense things we can do. How can we get life-saving drugs to patients faster and cheaper? Last week the help committee held a hearing on increasing access to generic and biosimilar drugs which cost less and allow patients to keep more money in their pockets while still having access to the medicines they need. Another thing that can lower cost is getting new drugs on to market more rapidly. In February, I released a report as to how to do that, getting faster treatments which lowers R and D cost that contribute to the research and development cost, that if they're higher, they contribute to higher prices, while maintaining the gold standard for safety and effectiveness. Many of the ideas discussed in my report and by our witnesses at the hearing last week, for both new treatments and generics were included in policies that the administration has proposed in this year's budget, and this is something that we can work on together. There are other ways to make health insurance and health care more affordable. Last week I released the MVP agenda, Money and Value for Patients, MVP, to build upon President Trump's efforts to give money to patients, rather than insurance companies, to use for their out-of-pocket cost. If paired with price transparency, the patient can shop for the most affordable health care, eliminating unnecessary bureaucracy and eliminating profit that doesn't flow to patients but flows to entities that pad cost in the system for their own benefit. And that price transparency bill is a bipartisan bill by members of this committee. While we speak of affordability, let's just recognize that if we don't come up with treatments and cures for things like Alzheimer's and dementia and cancer, then the boomer generation could bankrupt our country for the cost of care for these conditions. And the way to address that is to invest heavily in science and to use that investment effectively. I would argue that includes taking the resources of the NIH and making them more accessible to researchers at a wide variety of universities, so that it is the collective brain power across our nation and not just the brain power at a few concentrated institutions or cities. I credit Doctor Bhattacharya who came before our committee and was very encouraging regarding his understanding of these issues. Lastly, standing up for patients includes standing up for the most vulnerable. Protecting women from the dangers of chemical abortion drugs is a step we can take right now to protect life. Frankly, many pro-life Louisianians have been disappointed by the lack of action on this front. We need a willing partner to stand up for life. Mister Secretary, you have said that every abortion is a strategy. I would say it's time to stop stalling on the safety study for abortion drugs. It's time to reinstate the in-person safeguards, protecting women from abuse and coercion. I will note, there are criminal charges against a woman, against a mother in Louisiana. And in other jurisdictions, I'm told boyfriends, coercing or tricking a pregnant person into taking these pills. All this would be eliminated with a restoration of the in-person requirement. By the way, this is public record. The young woman, the young victim was Rosalie Markovich. So, uh, and there is a prosecution of the person that gave. If, if there was an in-person requirement reinstated by this administration, the doctor would have said, do you want this pill? And she said, no, I want my baby. And instead she was coerced. And that's the tragedy that has resulted. Secretary Kennedy, there is so much this committee and the President's administration can accomplish. People in Louisiana are struggling. They expect Congress and the administration to do our part as they do their part. Let's meet the moment. Thank you again, Mister Secretary, for uh for coming to discuss the proposed HHS budget. And with that, I recognize Senator Sanders for his opening statement.

Thank you very much, Mister Chairman, good to see you again, Secretary Kennedy. Um, let me just respond to the Chairman. A strong majority of the American people believe that it is women who have the right to control their own lives not government. Uh, and I happen to believe uh, that is where we should be going uh, as a nation. That's a choice of women, not the government. it is no secret uh that the american healthcare system is broken, every place i go when i speak i ask people to raise their hands conservative areas progressive areas people understand that there is something fundamentally wrong when we are spending twice as much per capita on healthcare as the people of any other nation and yet eighty five million americans are uninsured or underinsured we pay the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs our life expectancy is significantly lower than other wealthy nations, and for working class people, it is six years shorter than for wealthy people in this country. System is broken, it is designed to make the insurance companies and the drug companies extremely wealthy, and that is what's happening, and ordinary people are being left behind. I would have hoped that we would have an administration that would stand up for average people and say, " you know what, Let's do what every other major country on Earth does, guarantee health care to all people. Think that's a radical idea? Every other country on Earth does it, and they spend substantially less than we do. And yet we are moving in exactly the opposite direction as a result of the quote-unquote big, beautiful bill, fifteen million Americans have been thrown off the health care that they need. But that's not the only problem that we have with what Secretary Kennedy and the President are doing. I talk to doctors, as I'm sure everybody on this committee does, uh, in my own state of Vermont and all over this country. And doctors are extremely concerned by many of the actions that we're seeing from HHS and the CDC. They are concerned that Secretary Kennedy has directed the Centers for Disease Control to publish false information on its web site, suggesting that childhood vaccines cause autism, despite the findings of more than forty scientific studies in seven countries, that there is no link between vaccines and autism. We have seen HHS spread misinformation about the safety and effectiveness of the measles vaccine during the largest measles outbreak in the United States in over thirty years. We have seen HHS remove the director of the CDC because she refused to rubber-stamp the very dangerous and instantiated vaccine recommendations coming from the agency. We have seen the agency defund promising vaccine research that will leave us woefully unprepared. Mister S- Chairman, you will remember a couple of years ago we had the leading experts in this country, and we asked them, think we all did, do you anticipate another pandemic after COVID? And the answer was unanimously, yes, there is a fear, nobody knows when another pandemic will come. And we are now woefully unprepared to address that crisis if and when it comes. We have seen CDC and HHS under Secretary Kennedy's leadership. Uh, we have seen now thirty eight hundred people in America have been infected with measles the worst outbreak in over thirty years. Vaccination rates across the country are falling because parents i think are very confused about what they're hearing from washington and children are dying as a result so right now we are looking at a healthcare system which is broken and we have leadership in washington which is making it even worse and what i will chat with you about when i have my question secretary kennedy is things that you have written which call in doubt the very existence of the germ theory, which is the modern basis of modern medicine.

That would be worth a year.

Yeah, let's let's talk about that in a minute. But bottom line is what we would like to see is a broken health care system, improved. Most of us believe that health care is a human right, that all people should have health care, and that we need public health policies which keep our kids and all people healthy. not moving us in the other direction. Thank you, Mister Chairman.

Thank you. Um, we're joined today by the Honorable Robert F. Kennedy, Junior, the twenty-sixth Secretary of Health and Human Services. In his role as Secretary, Mister Kennedy is responsible for overseeing the nation's civilian federal health agencies, which support direct services for over a hundred and fifty million Americans, and keep all Americans safe by supporting sound science and through the regulation of medical and consumer products. i look forward to hearing from you today sir thank you for joining us

can you hear me ok jermyn cassidy ranking members and members of the committee thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today to talk about the president's twenty twenty seven budget for hhs we stand at a generational turning point are children of the sickest generation in modern history and decades of failed policies captured agencies and profit driven systems caused it parents across the country demanded change and we are delivering it re-ending the era of federal policies that fueled this chronic disease epidemic and replacing them with policies uh 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 fifteen months hhs has delivered historic wins we negotiated most favored nation drug prices with sixteen of the largest drug companies so americans no longer pay more than other people in wealthy countries for the same medications we're bringing real transparency to healthcare pricing so that patients know the cost of care before they receive it uh i use the full convening power of the federal government to bring health insurance ceos to the table to reform prior authorization and i convene the four hundred and five biggest tech companies in our country to end information blocking and allow american patients access to their health records on their cell phones for the first time in history for cutting red tape speeding decisions and demanding transparency we're also cracking down on waste fraud and abuse this year hhs and usda issued new dietary guidelines that put real whole food at the center of the american plate we flipped the food pyramid upside down and sent a clear message to americans eat real food hhs has also opened the door the partnerships with the industry trade associations non-profits and advocacy groups more than fifty medical schools have committed to expand nutrition education from an average of just two hours to forty hours food manufacturers are stepping up too more than forty percent of the food industry has committed to phase out petroleum-based dyes by year-end and many have already eliminated them in conjunction with these efforts fda approved six natural food color colorings 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 in driving faster access to lifesaving 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 women during menopause we're strengthening oversight of organ procurement we're implementing operations to work 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 fifty billion dollars over five years to strengthen rural hospitals and ensure americans can access the care they need no matter where they live hhs announced more than a hundred and thirty five million dollar investment this month to expand rural residency programs and nutrition services the data is clear when physicians train in rural communities they are far more likely to stay and serve there the president's budget puts all these priorities in action it invests in prevention because preventing disease costs less 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 profits ahead of the american people adresistance 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 in congress to seize this opportunity to implement and codify lasting and generational reform in American healthcare. For our country, for our children, and for the healthy American people, together we can make America healthy again. Thank you.

Thank you, Business Secretary. I'm glad that you've given a couple of these recently. You hit it right on time. Uh, I shall begin. Mr. Secretary, as I mentioned in my opening statements, I'm concerned that one of the Biden administration's pro-abortion policy, which is the removal of the in-person dispensing requirement for chemical abortion drugs is still in place. And by the way, Senator Sanders objected to me objecting to that. We're speaking about people ordering drugs and then tricking a woman into taking them, or coercing them into taking it. and these are subject to criminal charges in courts right now. We should all be opposed to that. Secretary Kennedy, why has the department not acted with greater urgency on reinstating the in-person dispensing requirement?

Uh, Senator Cassidy, I appreciate your comments. I unfortunately will not be able to talk about that.

I I thought that might be the answer. which is frustrating, cuz this has been litigated for years, at some point we'll need to, but, but I thought that might happen, so moving off the litigation. Last month my colleagues and I asked you to address unapproved, and misbranded chemical abortion drugs, coming from international providers, bypassing FDA. The first trump administration worked on the issue, but the problem continues. Why hasn't the department taken steps to stop the illegal importation and sale of counterfeit and unapproved abortion drugs

uh we take our responsibility seriously to uh to prosecute people who are selling misbranded drugs and i can talk to my enforcement unit at fda to uh to figure out why that's not happening to your satisfaction but As far as I know, we're doing that to the utmost possible.

That is not the case. Um, put it this way, maybe as much as possible, but that would be no effort whatsoever. And so I say that because however you feel about these issues, illegal and counterfeit drugs being sold and imported should be a common concern. Next, Mister Secretary, you have talked about restoring trust in the agency around the issue of immunization, and people lost trust during the pandemic. But, I think it's safe to say the trust gap has worsened over the last year due to false statements about safety and efficacy of vaccines for preventable diseases like measles. Now, I am a guy who has seen people die from vaccine preventable diseases.

I didn't hear you.

I am a doctor who has seen people die from vaccine preventable diseases. And when I see outbreaks numbering in the thousands, and people dying once more from vaccine preventable diseases, particularly children, it it seems more than tragic. Now the CDC director, I applaud, you have said in a previous hearing that you did you were not involved in her selection, but you agree with President Trump's selection. I've not met with her yet formally, but I agree as well. She seems to be a qualified person.

I did not say that I was not involved in her selection.

I didn't follow, but but uh but so my question here with the new c. d. c. director whomever whoever she or he is there are currently political appointees at c. d. c. who have worked to undermine trust in immunizations will the new director whoever she is have the right to make decisions independently of those of those political appointees and or replace them uh or otherwise reassign them so they cannot continue to actively undermine trust in immunizations

your characterization of the political appointees is wrong and uh the c. d. c. director has that power

now uh so she will have if she wishes to if she wishes to make a decision independently of them she shall be allowed to make that decision independently that's correct

uh yes

ok that's pertinent this summer we're hosting the world cup and celebrating america's two hundred and fiftieth birthday tourists from all over the world will come to the united states unfortunately some of them will bring vaccine preventable diseases like measles and unfortunately our measles immunization rates have fallen which means that this increases the risk risk of a measles outbreak in the us what steps is hhs taking to address the outbreaks that may arise from the world cup and the folks coming here

uh mister german we've done better at controlling the measles outbreak than any country in the world we this is a global outbreak uh it started before i came to office most of a eighty percent of children affected are over five years old which means their decision not to vaccinate predated my appointment we have limited that last year to twenty two hundred cases mexico is three times that much with one third of our population canada had doubled that much with one eighth of our population europe at a hundred and twenty seven thousand cases the year before we have a global pandemic it has nothing to do with me i wasn't in any of those countries

uh

it has to do with the global problem i've done a better job at limiting it than any country in the world and you can talk to governor mcmaster about that

we should not be comparing ourselves

and governor abbott about the help that we've given them in texas we know how to control the outbreaks

the question was what steps has the administration taken to track the diseases that would come in and potentially through these you are pointing out that other countries have outbreaks, which increases the likelihood they will bring that here, and our immunization rates have fallen below ninety five percent. Unfortunately, i'm out of time on this question, i will yield to senator Sanders, but i may come back, because that question wasn't answered.

i can tell you we are now we are laser focused on that, we have

In a sense

booths testing booths and institutions all over the games.

OK.

Senator Sanders.

Thank you. Secretary Kennedy, thanks for being with us. Um, in your book, The Real Anthony Fauci, you wrote, and I quote, "A doctrinal canon of the germ theory credits vaccines for the dramatic declines of infectious diseases, disease mortalities in North America and Europe during the twentieth century." Most Americans accept this claim as dogma. It will therefore come as a surprise to learn that it is simply untrue. But, despite your assertion in your book, according to a peer-reviewed study in the Lancet, led by the world health organizations, vaccine has have, vaccines have saved the lives of more than a hundred and fifty million people, and reduced infant deaths by forty percent, over the past fifty years. So my question is a simple one. Do you still believe that one of the central tenets of the germ theory, that vaccines sharply reduce infant mortality, is quote-unquote simply untrue?

Well, what I was saying in that book, the first of all, the the study you cited is a modeling study, the c d c,

It's a sorry.

a modeling study. c d c has actually done a real study that answers and it's called geier g u i e r twenty or two thousand and it says that the eighty percent mortality in chronic disease that took in mortalities from chronic disease that took place in the twentieth century that almost none of it was attributable vaccination it was attributable to hygiene to uh sewer plants a better water supplies to engineering that got oranges

just a sec i have to interrupt you cause i have other questions you're entitled to your view

that's not my view that's cdc's view

but that is well you're entitled to cdc's view but according to the world health organization and scientists all over the world vaccine have played vaccines have played an enormous role in saving lives

i don't contest that i'm just saying that if you wanna talk about what why disease mortality has disappeared in the twentieth century it was not vaccines

well you are in a minority of the unit all right all right i got other questions one second all right

well i'm just talking about science is not the problem

all right secretary kennedy you have talked about i think correctly the fact that a lot of our kids are eating ultra processed food foods high in sugar uh we have as you know uh an epidemic in obesity in this country we spend zillions of dollars dealing with diabetes caused by obesity uh i believe that we should follow countries like chile mexico and put strong warning labels on products that will tell show parents uh about the nature of the food uh their kids are uh eating uh so my question to you is how long will it take before uh your agency puts strong warning labels on unhealthy food and beverages

early in april we did our final uh regulations of finally having a definition for what ultra processed food is that is now in the inter-agency process we have no control over what happens there with the other agencies as soon as it comes back to us we're gonna do the labeling of it

alright let me ask you this uh president trump's uh nominee for surgeon general casey means told this committee that she agreed with me that junk food adds in the united states should be banned from tv what do you think you agree with that

i would support that

good otherwise what we are seeing now is these big food industry companies spending huge amounts of money telling kids to eat crap and i think it would make a lot of sense if we banned those ads from tv i'm hearing you saying that you agree with me on that

uh the only hesitation i was was we um we tried to do a smoking ban on tv and the tobacco companies voluntarily came to the table so which was a good thing and i think the same uh the same argument supplied for junk food is very probably even worse for americans than smoking

good well art i would hope you take a leadership role in making it clear that we should get these ads which you know just entice kids or dick kids to really bad food off the air alright Good. Alright, thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Senator Paul.

Senator Kenny, thanks for appearing. I think uh Senator Sanders makes a great point on obesity and type two diabetes and, you know, replacing ads or warning people that food is bad would be one thing, but one thing we could do immediately would be having the taxpayer quit subsidizing bad food. So soda infused with sugar, uh, chips, dips, twinkies, ding-dongs, donuts, bags of candy we should agree and i can understand i've had this bill for a couple of years we need to get somebody across the aisle that cares about nutrition enough to say we shouldn't subsidize bad things and one thing i think you have done is actually directed the states and given states waivers to try to do this uh but we need to codify that and i won't ask you a question on this i just hope that the administration will think about supporting the bill and let letting other republicans know that you will support it if it comes through My question is this though, because I think there's there's agreement to a lot of problems, but we disagree on solutions. We agree with the problem of drug, high drug prices, it's a problem. Um, some people, really on both sides say, well if we just publish the price, the problem will go away. I'm one who doesn't believe that at all, because I think most prices are fixed, and most consumers really don't care about the prices, why the prices are high. Now why don't they care about the price? Because they don't pay it. You know, it's either fixed through their insurance company, it's fixed through it's fixed through Medicaid, almost all the prices are fixed. Mmm. The only people who actually pay the price of the drugs and care about the price of drugs are people who have a high deductible and have an HSA so there are a couple of things we could do that would transform the drug pricing world and the insurance world um that cost nothing cost nothing to the tax payer. Only about ten percent of people have an HSA. Why? Because the government rules say your insurance product doesn't is not eligible for an HSA. i'd make everybody eligible for an hsa i'd let your health savings account pay for your premium and your deductible i'd let your hsa pay for healthy things gym membership diet program all kinds of stuff that could be for better health let everybody have an hsa raise the limits i would also let people negotiate what happens is if i go to the store and wanna negotiate over the price nobody cares but if i join a co-op like costco or amazon through an association health plan They could bid for my insurance. Costco has forty four million members. You think they're gonna have more leverage than me and my five employees. So, in the first Trump administration, uh, Senator, uh, President Trump did an executive order on this. We have legislation to do this, and we're talking to people in the administration, but we'd appreciate help on letting people join a co-op or an association plan regardless of their employment. Right now it has to be, you have to all be carpenters, you have to all be farmers or cattlemen. we think anybody that you know belongs to costco or amazon let them be a purchaser of insurance by loosening up the laws and that would work so i'd appreciate your idea on legalizing increasing hsa's and then legalizing the concept of letting people buy insurance or drugs through like a large co-op across state lines

and wouldn't it be great if we took the billions of dollars that we're giving to the insurance industry which increased its share value by a thousand percent after the passage of obamacare wouldn't it be better if we took that money and gave it to people to buy their own hsa's and let which gives them value based care and then let them actually participate in a market that will drive down prices

the the only reason i would differ on that cause i'm not sure how you're talking about taking the money from the insurance companies but i'd be for the idea that the insurance companies would get less of the take if we expanded hsa's and you were negotiating directly and you're right

it's another way to put it senator

well then the money would be more directed towards the individual and the individual would be able to use it the other thing about it that people don't think through is they say only rich people have hsa's well let's say only ten or twenty percent of people had hsa's because they bid on the prices it brings down the price for everybody and when you have innovations in the marketplace rich people do get them before the rest of us get them but it always drives the price down as it spreads to the rest of the marketplace but i think there are things we could do and would be open to and the the thing on restricting bad foods from being subsidized and then the idea of negotiating as a cop neither one of these costs money or even saves money but ultimately would give a lot more power to the consumer

uh i would just add add uh fifty percent of the states have now at our request applied for waivers uh so that they can get sandy's soda and candies off of snap we're paying for the poorest kids sixty three million poorest kids in this country to get diabetes and then we're treating seventy eight percent of them with medicaid afterwards so we're paying at both ends it makes no sense and once we finalize the ultra processed food definition we can ask the states to to start adding that to their snap waivers

i agree completely and if i think if you did that If we did that across the United States, it could be the most important thing we do for the health of Americans, and particularly for poor kids that we've ever done in our history. We have to get beyond this, oh, everybody has a right to a bag of candy. No, we need to have healthy foods. There's lots of other food that you can buy, but we should restrict it from the unhealthy things. And I appreciate your efforts on this.

Senator Kaine.

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you, Mr. Secretary. Secretary Kennedy, who at HHS is responsible for monitoring whether health facilities like hospitals are closing as a result of changes that were included in the reconciliation bill last summer

uh the same guy the the same guy who is responsible for monitoring the closures for hospitals due to the a c a regulations

yeah who who will who is it and what department is

i would be doctor os

So, that that right now, doctor Oz is responsible for monitoring those closures.

Yeah, he's ultimately responsible, right.

Yeah. So, but I mean, do you have anybody in HHS like in the secretary's office that is monitoring to see what's happening with the closures of facilities since the reconciliation last week or something like that?

Well, we have a we have a CMS council, but that would be within CMS.

OK. Cuz I wanna bring to the attention of my colleagues and to the secretary's office, closures in Virginia, because of the reconciliation bill. The bill was passed um right at the beginning of July, twenty twenty five. Less than two months later on September fourth, Augusta Medical Group, which is located in Fishersville, Virginia, a rural Shenandoah County, announced the closure of three clinics, two rural primary care clinics and one urgent care clinic. And in their announcement, Augusta Health said the consolidation is part of Augusta Health's ongoing response. to the one big beautiful bill acting the resulting realities for healthcare delivery. Then on December nineteenth, twenty twenty five, Centra announced its decision to discontinue all OBGYN services at their Centra Southside Community Hospital in Farmville, which is in rural Southside, Virginia. And the announcement, Centra said, quote, "Centra, like other rural healthcare providers, must adapt to significant financial and operational challenges including recently enacted reductions in federal health care funding. And then just in the last two weeks, Valley Health, which provides health care in the northern Shenandoah Valley in and around Winchester, announced it was making significant changes across its hospital system, including closing an observation unit that serves patients too sick for discharge. In the announcement, the system's president said it, quote, "has become more urgent following the adoption of the house resolution one which will reduce valley health's funding by over eighty million dollars annually. Mister chair i'd like to introduce into the record these announcements and press articles about the closures of facilities in virginia because of the bill.

without a budget.

um these are not hypothetical losses the the medicaid adjustments from last year were actually not scheduled to actually be implemented for a while but these institutions look at the medicaid percentage of their population and the medicaid changes and they realize they just can't make it work and all of these closures in virginia uh the ob gyn ward in farmville so you have to travel a lot farther to have kids primary health clinics all of them are in rural virginia and overall the virginia hospital association indicates that they'll lose thirty four billion dollars over ten years as a result of the obba Um, i now that i know that cms should focus on that or doctor oz should focus on that i'll direct my questions that way but i think it's important for everybody in this room to know if these closures in rural virginia are happening even before the medicaid changes get implemented we're gonna see an awful lot more of them

uh can i reply i first of all senator i think it's it's an absolute tragedy to lose this hospital so i know that does to uh rural areas from touring the country that you're not just denying people access to healthcare but it is an economic driver for those communities it's the largest employer in many cases the highest pay and businesses will never move there once that facility close so we're doing everything in our power this is not a problem that was created by the trump administration the one a beautiful bill which hasn't even gone into place yet

yeah but can i just say

cause How much money are those hospitals for the past ten years?

I on Not in not Yeah, not not in Virginia. Interestingly enough, not in Virginia. And all three of these cited the reconciliation bill as the reason for the closures. I'm glad you walked through the challenges because you're right, it's not just the loss of patient care. It's also the loss of jobs, health care jobs. And as you point out, once the hospital closes, it's really difficult for businesses to move into these communities because they realize we can't move cuz there's no health care available. So I I like the fact that you connect all the dots in this. And I'm just urging my colleagues as these Medicaid cuts actually get implemented, I think these closures are gonna become even more dramatic and need this committee's attention. I yield back, Mister Chair.

Senator and Doctor Marshall.

Thank you, Mister Chairman. I just want to remind everybody that um Medicaid spending is gonna be going up hundreds of billions of dollars over the next uh several years i i think the trump administration has done more for rural health care in the rural economy than any administration mr. secretary maybe you just talk a little bit about the monies i mean real monies a billion dollars in the medicaid uh range an extra billion dollars we have given to kansas and another two hundred and twenty million dollars to the rural health transformation fund is the what has the trump administration done to help fund rural health care

well first of all i you know one of the democratic talking points is that we've cut medicaid by a trillion dollars but cbo disagrees with that cbo the reason cbo report report from two weeks ago as the medicaid will raise will raise from about six hundred uh billion to nine hundred billion by twenty thirty six a forty seven percent increase only in washington is that considered a cut second of all the president is making the biggest investment in rural health of any administration in history the rural health transformation fund if it gives fifty billion dollars and just to put that in context over five years medicaid which everybody is which we just heard is is closing hospitals

right

medicaid only gives seven percent of its funding to rural hospitals about twenty billion dollars a year we are now increasing that influx of federal funds by fifty percent per year

yeah

ten extra billion dollars a year this gives those hospitals a chance to restructure their to to rebuild their infrastructure to install telehealth to remodel themselves as you pointed out a hospital a hospital cannot exist the business model is failed for a lot of those hospitals again one point six patients a day you cannot have an overnight hospital and have a business model that works we need to have another model and we need to help them transition to that and that's one of the things that the rural transformation fund will do

yeah thanks secretary kennedy let's talk about something near and dear to our hearts is is uh you were committed uh to make america healthy again and very specifically targeting children and their health just tell me some of the things that you've done and and where are we going briefly what's what's the goals for the next year to help make america healthy again

well i think thank you for that question senator i think the you know the probably the most impactful thing that we've done is change the food pyramid the food pyramid was written by food industry lobbyists for fifty years and it was it reflected the mercantile impulses of those companies that put fruit loops at the top of the food pyramid we have now done a science-based guideline the best nutritionists in our country from the biggest universities came together for almost a year in a science-based guidance and that emphasize protein, vegetables, whole grains that will now revolutionize the dietary culture in this country because we're changing the subsidy program so we get four hundred and five million dollars just from usda a day food subsidies to the wicks program to school lunches to the indian health services to snap and all these other programs and they will now change to align with the dietary guidelines military is now changing the uh the food on all of its bases and so we're gonna see massive changes across the culture and we're gonna see more availability of this food and i can but i think that's the most important thing

right yeah

getting rid of the grass standards which we've had bipartisan support on there on that uh senator saunders has been a leader on that issue we are actually doing it now we have final regulations again in the interagency process on grass right now we're getting rid of food dyes we're reforming uh through operation stork speed infant formula, redoing the nutrients, uh, making sure to to test for all the contaminants. We've got a lot

Just a second. If I could just get one more, one more question. So thank you, and I do commend you. You've done your job. You guys have uh done great work with uh transparency, with prior authorization. You're starting to talk about grass. But I think we need to look in a mirror. And so many of my colleagues are, you know, saying what have you done or not what have you done? But we have bills right before us, our our transparency, our price tag bills, eighteen bipartisan co-sponsors. Our prior authorization bill, sixty-eight cosponsors. Let's get those across the finish line. Grass legislation, our Maha package. Well, we just released a large HSA package of, of bills. All of these would drive down the cost of health care, codifying much what you have done as well. But Congress needs to, we need to do our job too, and uh quit, quit treading water up here. Thank you, Mr. Secretary.

Thank you, Senator Marshall.

Mr. Secretary, before I go to Senator uh Hassan, uh what was the cdc paper you said attributed improvements in longevity to to to sewer treatment for example not vaccines uh i'm looking for that on chatgpt and it says it doesn't exist so what does that

it's called geier the lead author is geier g u i e r there is another one that came out in nineteen seventy seven that was a required reading in virtually every medical school that says the same thing it actually actually

who is the author of that one

now one was called mckinley mckinley

mckinley mckinley um that one is not c. d. c. according to

well that's not the guy is c. d. c. thank you

senator hessen

well thanks mr. chair and good to see you again secretary kennedy um look i agree with you that all americans should have access to healthy food however president trump has made it far harder for families to afford their groceries last year the typical family paid hundreds of dollars more

i would say that beef has dropped by one percent in the last quarter

hmm

i would say that beef has dropped by one percent in the last quarter beef prices

banana prices are up nearly seven percent since president trump took office cheese prices are up six percent so again when groceries get more expensive easier or harder for families to afford the very healthy foods that you want them to eat

well uh there is you can eat beef you can eat poultry you can eat fish and beef is the price of beef is dictated by the size of the herd the herd dropped at the lowest

if it's i look you're you're not answering but obviously if the food is more expensive

you're blaming president trump for something that he didn't do

yeah

let's take a look at this image did you post this image in twenty twenty four about grocery prices being too high

uh i don't know oh i think you sent the image