Former Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Donna Shalala criticized the Trump administration’s efforts to cut back the department she once led, calling it an insult that puts Americans’ health at risk.
In an op-ed for Stat News published Thursday, Shalala said the administration was “insulting a generation of patriotic federal workers, proposing a silly new bureaucracy, and appointing people who are anti-science and anti-government with no management or leadership experience.”
“That’s exactly [what] you would do if you wanted to have no positive impact on the country’s health, welfare, and future,” she added.
Shalala, who served as the HHS secretary under former President Clinton from 1993-2001, called the Trump administration’s decision to cut 10,000 people from HHS “deeply misguided.”
“Cutting 10,000 people from HHS, on top of the 10,000 who have already resigned, is deeply misguided. I found the civil service at HHS exemplary — thoughtful, engaged, creative, and hardworking. If HHS is to be reinvented, the best approach would be to work with the civil servants who know it best, not remove them,” she wrote.
Shalala went on to say that Trump administration officials don’t understand the impact of the HHS on the country’s economy.
“The current administration is led by people who don’t understand leadership or the extraordinary impact that HHS programs have on our economy and our future.”
On Thursday, the Trump administration announced it was getting rid of roughly a quarter of the department’s staffers prompting a flurry of warnings from Democrats, former officials and policy experts over the potential consequences for the health of Americans.
In a press release, HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said the department would reorganize and cut about 10,000 jobs through layoffs. The department will seek to cut an additional 10,000 employees through buyouts, early retirement and the administration’s “Fork in the Road” offer.
Responding to the move, Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) held a press briefing Thursday afternoon, along with Sens. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) and Ed Markey (D-Mass.).
“Today’s announcement is not just a restructuring of the Department of Health and Human Services. It is a catastrophe for the health care of every American,” Markey said.
The Hill reached out to the HHS for comment.