Internal Trump administration document reveals massive budget cut proposal for federal health agencies

The Trump administration is formulating plans to cut roughly a third of the federal health budget, eliminate dozens of programs and vastly whittle down health agencies, according to an internal document reviewed by CNN.

The Trump administration is formulating plans to cut roughly a third of the federal health budget, eliminate dozens of programs and vastly whittle down health agencies, according to an internal document reviewed by CNN. The preliminary memo, sent from White House budget officials to the Department of Health and Human Services, previews the administration’s plans to slash discretionary federal health spending and rework health agencies in the image of President Donald Trump and HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr’s “Make America Healthy Again” mandate. The document, dated April 10, could still be finalized with changes. If enacted as is, it could cut total federal health spending by tens of billions of dollars a year. It would also consolidate dozens of health programs and departments into the Administration for a Healthy America (AHA), a new entity unveiled by Kennedy during mass layoffs earlier this month. The plan calls for steep cuts to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which would see its budget reduced by more than 40% under the administration’s proposal. It also eliminates CDC’s global health center and programs focused on chronic disease prevention, and domestic HIV/AIDS prevention. While some of the agency’s work would be moved into new AHA centers, programs on gun violence, injury prevention, youth violence prevention, drowning, minority health and others would be eliminated entirely. Many of the staff in those CDC departments were laid off in the mass reduction-in-force announcements on April 1.