Health Care

“Among the rich nations in the world, the United States stands out for the virulence of its political battles over health care. American has long left a large population without coverage.” — Paul Starr (2010)

Health Care and Medical Research in the Trump Administration

👎 Withdrawal from the World Health Organization (January 20, 2025)

On his first day in office, Trump issued an executive order withdrawing the United States from the World Health Organization (WHO). The US was the largest contributor to the WHO, between 12% and 15% of its 2022-2023 budget. Professor Judd Watson of Johns Hopkins University states that “if we think it’s expensive to be part of the WHO, just wait until we aren’t part of the WHO. That's where we're going to see the true costs. This withdrawal will be incredibly costly for both the American people and the global community, and not just in the pure economic terms of our contributions to WHO.”

The United States has had the reputation around the world, Watson argues, that ”supports others, and that has important consequences for global diplomacy. We are known in the health space as a country that provides assistance to many countries. In fact, many countries with whom we have very poor diplomatic relations, and that we don't see eye-to-eye with politically, still reach out to us for support around health.Health provides an entryway for us to engage with countries, many of whom we may not agree with, and to have diplomatic conversations and other conversations. If that is lost, it will have tremendous consequences for the U.S.’s security and long-term economic and political outlook.”

Source: Watson quoted in “The US and the WHO: An Imperfect but Essential Relationship,” Bloomberg School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins University, January 24, 2024, https://publichealth.jhu.edu/2025/the-consequences-of-the-us-withdrawal-from-the-who.

👎Medical Research in Peril.

During the first months of the second Trump administration, it became clear that medical research, at the NIH, other federal institutions, hospitals, research institutes, pharmaceutical companies, or at universities would be subject to significant challenges. The new leadership at the NIH, which is the world’s largest public funder of biomedical research, announced in March 2025 that scientific studies touching on LGBT+ health, gender identity, and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) in the biomedical field would be terminated. Hundreds of grants would be cancelled because they no longer met “agency priorities.” Indeed, researchers seeking funding had better avoid the several hundred words that the Trump administration considers “woke.”

The National Science Foundation has cancelled more than 400 awards and the NIH has cancelled about 780 grants, as of May 2025. More than $800 million in NIH grants targeted for LBGTQ healthcare cancelled in early Mary 2025.

Source: Karen Yourish, Annie Daniel, Saurabh Datar, Isaac White, and Lazaro Gamio, “These Words Are Disappearing in the New Trump Administration,” New York Times, March 7, 2025, https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/03/07/us/trump-federal-agencies-websites-words-dei.html?unlocked_article_code=1.2E4.53XY.1m0NVQ_fg5Ls&smid=url-share. Benjamin Mueller, “Trump Administration Slashes Research Into LGBTQ Health,.” New York Times, May 4, 2025, https:/www.nytimes.com/2025/05/04/health/trump-administration-slashes-research-int-LBGTQ-health.html.

👎 Abrupt cuts of billions of dollars for state health services (March 2025)

More than $12 billion in federal grants to states were abruptly canceled. Those funds were to be used for tracking infectious diseases, mental health services, addiction treatment, and other urgent medical needs. The money was originally authorized by Congress as part of COVID relief. Cash-strapped state and local facilities saw this as a lifeline of support. In Colorado, for example, these funds helped support 60 programs, including, as reported in the New York Times, “crisis response teams, services for adults with severe mental illness and for young adults with early onset of psychotic disorders; and peer support counselors for people in recovery from drug and alcohol addiction.” The Health and Human Resources response was: “The COVID pandemic is over, and HHS will no longer waste billions of taxpayer dollars responding to a nonexistent pandemic that Americans moved on from years ago.”

Source: Apoorva Mandavilli, Margot Singer-Katz, and Jan Hoffman, “Trump administration Abruptly Cuts Billions from State Health Services,” New York Times, March 26, 2025, https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/26/health/trump-state-health-grants-cuts.html

👎 Termination of dozens of COVID-related research studies and studies on potential future pandemics.

Hey, the COVID pandemic is over, why fund research on it? That was the rationale for terminating grants related to new vaccines and treatments for COVID and other pathogens. But nine of those terminated awards focused on so-called priority pathogens that could arise with new, entirely unexpected pandemics.

👎 20,000 jobs (about one-quarter of workforce) eliminated by Health and Human Services (March 2025)

Through a combination of buyouts and early retirement (10,000 staffers) and firings (10,000 staffers), HHS secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., is drastically down-sizing the department. The Washington Post states the downsizing is “remarkable. Virtually every corner of the HHS research and regulatory enterprise—which also includes substance abuse, maternal health, disease surveillance, and grants to research universities—is likely to be affected.”

“We’re going to do more with less. No American is going to be left behind,” Kennedy said. But Georges S. Benjamin, MD, head of the American Public Health Association, pushed back: “Losing people, losing money, making relationships dysfunctional is not going to improve the health of the American people. Wrong diagnosis, wrong therapy.”

Source: Lauren Weber, Dan Diamond, Joel Achenbach, Rachel Roubein, and Lena H. Sun, “RFK Jr. Announces Big Cuts to Department of Health and Human Services,” Washington Post, March 25, 2025, https://washingtonpost.com/health/2025/03/27/hhs-cuts-layoffs-rfk-cdc-fda/