# Department of Health and Human Services The **Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)** is the largest department by budget (well over $1.7 trillion, most of it Medicare and Medicaid) and one of the most consequential in daily American life. It runs the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the National Institutes of Health (NIH) — the world's largest biomedical-research funder — plus the Indian Health Service, the Administration for Children and Families, and the public-health-emergency apparatus. It touches nearly every American through health coverage and through drug, food, vaccine, and disease oversight. For the KB, HHS sits at the center of the post-COVID right-wing campaign against public-health institutions — distrust of the CDC and FDA, vaccine politics, and the broader anti-expert, anti-[[Administrative State]] turn. The selection of its current Secretary made HHS the single most ideologically transformed department of the second term. ## Leadership (2025–) [[Robert F. Kennedy Jr]] was confirmed Secretary of Health and Human Services on February 13, 2025, by a 52–48 vote — the closest Cabinet confirmation of the cohort, with Republican [[Mitch McConnell]] voting no. A longtime vaccine skeptic who ran for president before endorsing Trump, Kennedy has used the "Make America Healthy Again" banner to reorient the department around chronic disease, food additives, and a sweeping skepticism of the vaccine and pharmaceutical establishment — remaking advisory committees, research priorities, and the posture of the CDC and FDA toward the science bureaucracy he campaigned against. ## Major agencies - **[[CMS]]** (Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services) — Medicare, Medicaid, and ACA marketplaces; the budget core of HHS. - **[[FDA]]** (Food and Drug Administration) — drugs, food, vaccines, medical devices, tobacco. - **[[CDC]]** (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) — disease surveillance and public-health guidance. - **[[NIH]]** (National Institutes of Health) — biomedical research funding; a target for grant cuts and indirect-cost caps. - **Indian Health Service** and **Administration for Children and Families** — care delivery and social services. ## The capture lens The [[Project 2025]] blueprint targets HHS's reproductive-health programs, gender-affirming care, and the research-and-regulatory autonomy of its science agencies — while the Kennedy agenda adds a distinct anti-vaccine, anti-additive overlay. The patterns the KB tracks: - **Science-agency reorganization** — remaking CDC/FDA advisory committees and leadership; [[Schedule F]] reclassification of career scientists. - **Vaccine-policy rollback** — revisiting recommendations, approvals, and the childhood schedule. - **Reproductive-care restriction** — targeting family-planning programs and the FDA's handling of abortion medication. - **Research funding cuts** — NIH grant reductions and indirect-cost caps that hit universities. - **Medicaid work requirements** — tightening eligibility and shrinking the program. ## See Also - [[Robert F. Kennedy Jr]] - [[Administrative State]] - [[Schedule F]] - [[Project 2025]] - [[Cabinet Departments Hub]] - [[Federal Agencies]]