HHS layoffs cut deep swath through health infrastructure

WASHINGTON — Matt Cutler had been a longtime employee of the Administration for Community Living. But as of 5 a.m. Tuesday, he became one of thousands of Health and Human Services employees to lose their jobs in the latest sweeping round of cuts at the agency.

A few hours after he received a “reduction in force” email, Cutler was part of a group stationed in the Senate office buildings asking senators how they planned to respond.

Cutler said that while the morning had been overwhelming to process, he was more concerned about the gaps in care that would now occur. The HHS reorganization will dissolve ACL and rearrange those programs across other agencies. ACL is the agency responsible for supporting aging and disabled individuals.

“I don’t know what’s going to happen, because, well, we’ve been shut out,” he said.

The Trump administration began laying off or reassigning an estimated 10,000 HHS employees on Tuesday as part of a reorganization strategy revealed last week. The staffing cuts will fundamentally reshape the health agency and center more power and decision-making among political appointees. Between this week’s cuts and earlier cuts, the agency has seen its full-time employees cut from 82,000 to 62,000 — about a 24% reduction.

The changes lay the groundwork for Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s plan to streamline operations and shift to focusing on chronic disease, though critics argue some of the cuts would undermine that effort.

Cutler said he does not understand how firing the personnel responsible for ensuring communities get grants will improve the agency’s efficiency.

“I think people need to ask themselves, did the money that’s going to their communities arrive sooner and more accurately as a result of this? And if not, they need to start asking questions and holding people accountable,” said Cutler.

Democrats on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform posted on the social platform X that they were distributing whistleblower resources outside of HHS Tuesday.

Capitol Hill

Lawmaker reaction to the widespread staffing cuts ranged from outrage to indifference.

Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Chairman Bill Cassidy, R-La., invited Kennedy to testify April 10 about the reorganization.

“The news coverage on the HHS reorg is being set by anonymous sources and opponents are setting the perceptions,” Cassidy said in a statement.

“In the confirmation process, RFK committed to coming before the committee on a quarterly basis. This will be a good opportunity for him to set the record straight and speak to the goals, structure and benefits of the proposed reorganization.”

Cassidy did not respond to questions from a former Centers for Disease Control and Prevention employee who approached him Tuesday with concerns about vaccines.

The former employee, who requested to have her name withheld, was terminated in February after five years with the agency and was most recently in a probationary role. Since then she’s been part of efforts to discuss the staffing cuts with Sens. Angela Alsobrooks, D-Md., Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., James Lankford, R-Okla., Peter Welch, D-Vt., and Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska.

“I think there are three guardrails, the Congress, which is now failing miserably,” said Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, addressing a group of former federal workers. King said the second guardrail was the courts, which have been “stepping up” and the third was the American people, who he said must be vigilant.

“Once the public starts to realize this, they’re going to start to say, ‘Wait a minute, this isn’t what we signed up for,’” said King, who said he spoke out against the cuts during a Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee hearing earlier Tuesday.

Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala, said HHS was “just doing reform” and “trying to cut back on the tax money that you and I pay.”

House Democrats on the Energy and Commerce Committee used a routine hearing on the Food and Drug Administration’s user fee program for over-the-counter drugs to push back over the mass firings.

Rep. Diana DeGette, D-Colo., ranking member of the Health subcommittee, said she saw no point in holding a routine hearing when HHS was actively being dismantled.

“There’s only one entity that can legally fix and improve this, and that’s Congress, Mr. Chairman,” she said. “So while we’re sitting here having this hearing, our premium research institutions, which are the gem of the entire world, are being dismantled before our very eyes, and we are just sitting here talking about sunscreen.”

Rep. Frank Pallone Jr., D-N.J., ranking member of the full committee, pointed to a resignation letter from FDA Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research Director Peter Marks. Marks resigned this past Friday citing “lies” and “misinformation” from Kennedy.

“Dr. Marks is not the first expert to be purged from the agency and I’m sure he is not going to be the last,” Pallone said. “The attacks continue, yet our Republican colleagues refuse to demand answers or hold this administration accountable.”

Pallone, DeGette and Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee ranking member Yvette D. Clarke, D-N.Y., wrote to Kennedy Tuesday, seeking clarity on what authority HHS was invoking to make the widespread cuts.

“It is unacceptable that you refused to provide a briefing to the Committee or answer any questions regarding this proposed reorganization and layoffs — after all, Congress must approve many of the decisions that you proposed,” they wrote.

Rep. Brett Guthrie, R-Ky., chair of the full committee, acknowledged Democrats’ concerns during the hearing and said that Congress should have the “proper oversight” over the administration’s decisions.

“Everybody knew that coming into this they were going to work to try to make government more efficient,” he said. “But it is also our responsibility as they do that to make sure that our mission’s accomplished and have the proper oversight to do that.”

“I just want to say, thank you,” DeGette responded.

Scope of cuts

The National Institutes of Health, FDA and Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration were among the agencies hit especially hard by cuts Tuesday.

In some cases, entire offices were laid off or reassigned, raising questions about the future of that work and whether it will be absorbed at other agencies within HHS. For example, all staff at the FDA’s Center for Tobacco Products were laid off or reassigned; advocates noted that the center is funded through user fees paid by the tobacco industry, so cuts won’t result in less federal spending. The director of the center, Brian King, was placed on administrative leave.

Other high-profile staffing changes announced Tuesday include: Jeanne Marrazzo, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases; several other high-ranking officials at the NIAID; and Jennifer M. Hoenig, director of the National Survey on Drug Use and Health at SAMHSA.

All were placed on administrative leave.

The NIAID, which played a large role in the COVID-19 response under former director Anthony Fauci, and the NIH at large, experienced widespread layoffs in rank-and-file staff, particularly people in support positions that officials said help the agency function.

The terminations apparently happened without input from NIH leaders; one high-ranking official who remains at the agency requested in an email to staff obtained by CQ Roll Call that they report any terminations that they were aware of so they could track the process and plan for the steps ahead.

The tumult at NIH coincided with the recent confirmation of Director Jay Bhattacharya, who sent his first communication to NIH staffers Tuesday as hundreds were getting laid off.

The email, obtained by CQ Roll Call, didn’t address the reductions in force until the second-to-last paragraph, where he wrote that he was “joining NIH at a time of tremendous change.”

“Every inch of the federal government is under scrutiny — and NIH is not exempt,” Bhattacharya wrote.

“These reductions in the workforce will have a profound impact on key NIH administrative functions, including communications, legislative affairs, procurement, and human resources, and will require an entirely new approach to how we carry them out.”

He wrote that he would “do my best to lead NIH through these reforms, implement new policies humanely and endeavor to earn your trust,”

Former FDA Commissioner Robert Califf said that “the FDA as we’ve known it is finished,” in a LinkedIn post on Tuesday morning.

“I believe that history will see this a huge mistake,” he wrote. “I will be glad if I’m proven wrong, but even then there is no good reason to treat people this way. It will be interesting to hear from the new leadership how they plan to put ‘Humpty Dumpty’ back together again.”

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