RFK Jr. Shrugs at $700B in Medicaid Cuts That Hurt Black People

Tensions ran high on Capitol Hill this week as Congress grilled Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. over the Trump administration’s proposal to slash $21.6 billion from the nation’s public health system — cuts that could disproportionately hurt Black and low-income communities.

Kennedy was questioned for hours Wednesday in two separate hearings — one in the House Appropriations Committee, and the other before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. Lawmakers slammed his leadership, pointing to the West Texas measles outbreak, and condemned the Trump administration’s plans to cut billions more from the HHS budget.

LEARN MORE: APHA Leader: RFK Jr. Is Harming Black Health

At one point in the hearing, acknowledging that, if he were the parent of a small child, he would approve their vaccination, Kennedy added, “I advise the American people not to take medical advice from me.”

Dr. Georges Benjamin, executive director of the nonprofit American Public Health Association, said at a press conference after the hearing that the Trump administration’s stated reason for the cuts — fiscal responsibility — doesn’t hold up under scrutiny.

Health Problems Could Increase

“They’re not cutting waste, fraud, and abuse. They’re cutting functionality,” Benjamin said. “This isn’t just a budget issue. It’s a moral issue: $700 billion coming out of Medicaid will result in the loss of coverage for at least 13 million people.”

At issue is a blueprint for spending cuts drawn up by the Department of Government Efficiency that Kennedy and his team have begun to implement. Although Kennedy said he pushed back on some cuts and has reinstated programs cut mistakenly, he said he intends to stay the course, implementing the DOGE plan and its “painful” cut reductions.

Already, some 20,000 HHS employees have been fired or taken a buyout or early retirement. If those additional budget cuts materialize, they could restrict or hamper healthcare access for millions of low-income Black Americans. That likely would increase chronic health issues in the Black community, like heart disease, high blood pressure, and diabetes.

The cuts also threaten to reverse the progress made in fighting America’s overdose crisis, a burden that disproportionately affects Black communities. Slashing Medicaid also means access to primary care services will decrease overall.

“When they cut the Medicaid budget, they will dramatically undermine the primary care capacity in the country,” said Dr. Benjamin. “There are [also] concerns about loss of many hospitals, particularly rural hospitals. Again, those hospitals serve a broad function in communities. They often serve a very, very much a primary care function in many communities, because of the way they’re linked to the health system in those communities.”

Contentious Hearing

At the Senate hearing, Sen. Angela Alsobrooks, a first-term Democrat and the first Black woman to represent Maryland, was among Kennedy’s most vocal critics. Earlier this week, she was one of three senators who filed a no-confidence resolution on Kennedy’s HHS leadership. The resolution cites more than 50 reasons why the Secretary is unfit to lead the department charged with safeguarding the nation’s health.

“You’ve been unable in most cases to answer specific questions related to your agency,” Alsobrooks told Kennedy.

When the secretary argued that the senator isn’t familiar with NIH and its programs, Alsobrooks reminded him that his agency is headquartered in her state — and she was there recently, meeting with researchers Kennedy had fired.

She already understands his department, Alsobrooks told Kennedy: “I don’t need any help from you.”

“You’ve been unable in most cases to answer specific questions related to your agency,” Alsobrooks added.

Hearing Disrupted

During the hearing, protesters, including Ben & Jerry’s co-founder Ben Cohen, disrupted the hearing, and security officers removed them from the room. Several of them loudly blasted the budget plan and accused Kennedy of harming people with HIV and AIDS.

The proposed budget would slash an estimated $715 billion from federal healthcare spending, much of it from Medicaid — a move that the Congressional Budget Office estimates would leave millions of Americans without coverage.

Critics argue these cuts would be devastating for Black families, who are more likely to rely on Medicaid and public health infrastructure as their only means of healthcare access.

RELATED: White House to Cities: Good Luck Fighting Lead Poisoning

The Trump Administration intends to restructure the current healthcare agencies by combining them into a new entity called “The Administration for a Healthy America.” Some of the agencies that would be cut include the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health, the Health Resources and Services Administration, and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.

Benjamin pointed out that the administration’s claims about reallocating resources simply don’t add up. “You can’t replace $6 billion in cuts to critical agencies like SAMHSA, HRSA, and the CDC with $500 million for AHA, which is basically only what’s in the CDC budget for overdose prevention. The math doesn’t make sense,” Benjamin said.

The post RFK Jr. Shrugs at $700B in Medicaid Cuts That Hurt Black People appeared first on Word In Black.