The place is AHA? RFK Jr.’s Administration for a Wholesome America does not exist but : NPR

[ad_1] <img src="https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims3/default/strip/false/crop/2556x1704+0+0/resize/1100/quality/50/format/jpeg/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F37%2F97%2F82ded7b7439c9af0b3cf0d5089fb%2Fgettyimages-2255115345.jpg" data-template="https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims3/default/strip/false/crop/2556x1704+0+0/resize/{width}/quality/{quality}/format/{format}/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F37%2F97%2F82ded7b7439c9af0b3cf0d5089fb%2Fgettyimages-2255115345.jpg" class="img" alt="Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is shown in a close-up portrait." fetchpriority="high"/> Well being Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., pictured on the White Home earlier this month, promised he would arrange the Administration for a Wholesome America again in March 2025. It does not exist but. Alex Wong/Getty Photos cover caption

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Alex Wong/Getty Photos Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was just some weeks into his new job as well being secretary in March 2025 when he unveiled a dramatic plan to remake the Division of Well being and Human Companies.

Kennedy rapidly decided that the scale and construction of his company — which incorporates the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention, the Meals and Drug Administration, the Nationwide Institutes for Well being — was "incomprehensible." He mentioned it was bloated and that defined why federal well being officers had failed to enhance People' well being.

"We'll eradicate a whole alphabet soup of departments and businesses whereas preserving their core features," he mentioned in a social media video. These "core features" could be preserved, he defined, "by merging them into a brand new group known as the Administration for a Wholesome America or AHA."

The identify performs off of Kennedy's "Make America Wholesome Once more" slogan.

Weeks into the second yr of the second Trump time period, many workers and departments of HHS have been eradicated in chaotic cuts handed down on April 1, 2025, however the Administration for a Wholesome America doesn't but exist.

There isn't any public details about when AHA is likely to be created, and little or no about what workers and packages it might embrace.

Not a standard course of The latest public doc from HHS about AHA was a finances request printed in June. It says that the brand new company will "concentrate on areas together with main care, environmental well being, HIV/AIDS, maternal and youngster well being, psychological and behavioral well being, and workforce growth."

These packages are unfold out throughout well being businesses, together with on the Workplace of the Assistant Secretary for Well being, the Well being Sources and Companies Administration, the Substance Abuse and Psychological Well being Companies Administration and a number of other facilities at CDC.

Congress did not embrace any cash for AHA within the newest HHS funding invoice. Staffers on committees with jurisdiction over HHS inform NPR there haven't even been conferences with Kennedy's workers to assist safe help for brand new funding or authorization to face up the brand new company sooner or later.

As an alternative, political appointees at HHS are holding secretive planning conferences about AHA, in accordance with seven present and former workers at federal well being businesses who spoke to NPR.

HHS wouldn't reply NPR's questions for this story, however in a press release mentioned that planning for AHA was nonetheless underway.

<img src="https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims3/default/strip/false/crop/6000x4000+0+0/resize/1100/quality/50/format/jpeg/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F8f%2F88%2F48bb4a0c42398e4c770f4f115ca8%2Fap25121776049084.jpg" data-template="https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims3/default/strip/false/crop/6000x4000+0+0/resize/{width}/quality/{quality}/format/{format}/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F8f%2F88%2F48bb4a0c42398e4c770f4f115ca8%2Fap25121776049084.jpg" class="img" alt="An artistically composed picture of the Humphrey Building in Washington, D.C. against a bright blue sky with fluffy clouds. It's an example of the Brutalist architectural style. " loading="lazy"/> The Humphrey Constructing in Washington, D.C. is the headquarters of the Division of Well being and Human Companies. Jose Luis Magana/AP cover caption

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Jose Luis Magana/AP Behind the scenes, rushed and secretive conferences At CDC in Atlanta, a senior official describes a continuing demand for details about budgets, workers and public well being work. It is not even clear who's asking for the info or what they plan to do with it, they are saying, however they perceive it's associated to AHA planning.

"All that you just're advised is that 'they' are asking for this info they usually need it now — or they needed it yesterday." The official requested NPR to not use their identify due to fears {of professional} retribution for talking publicly with out authorization. "'They' can consult with a small circle of individuals round Kennedy that he trusts, who're both unnamed, otherwise you'll obtain a distinct identify every time, so that you're by no means actually fairly positive the place the ask is coming from."

A distinct senior official at HHS, who additionally requested that NPR to not use their identify for concern {of professional} retribution, echoed that description of political appointees related to Kennedy holding "fixed conferences in secret about what this new AHA is meant to seem like, however they do not share with anybody within the civil service." The supply provides there are rumors that Kennedy's crew is "going to face up AHA within the subsequent few months, like within the spring."

There isn't any public details about who's in command of planning to create the company, and HHS didn't make anybody obtainable to interview for this story.

"What does this imply?" Dr. Karen Hacker says the method of restructuring HHS has been "like constructing and flying the airplane on the similar time," she says. When Kennedy started as secretary, Hacker was the director of CDC's Nationwide Middle for Power Illness Prevention and Well being Promotion. She was placed on administrative go away on April 1 — together with hundreds of others at HHS — then retired from CDC. She now works as an adjunct professor and well being coverage fellow at Emory College.

She says regardless that her middle labored on power illnesses, a central precedence of AHA, her crew was sidelined by the political appointees executing Kennedy's imaginative and prescient. "We by no means had been requested about methods for reductions, or about what could be finest to maneuver, or whether or not any of those packages had been approved [by Congress]," she says. "My middle alone had over 40 line objects with particular appropriations language."

None of that appeared to matter. A 3rd of the workers in her middle had been lower throughout the April 1 discount in power, and your entire middle was slated to be eradicated in President Trump's 2026 finances, printed in Might. "I do bear in mind having conversations about — 'What does this imply? Wait a second, are we not going to AHA?'"

<img src="https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims3/default/strip/false/crop/3000x2000+0+0/resize/1100/quality/50/format/jpeg/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2Ff4%2F8e%2Fdc50a355493e8aeccaf36da675c2%2Fgettyimages-2249321766.jpg" data-template="https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims3/default/strip/false/crop/3000x2000+0+0/resize/{width}/quality/{quality}/format/{format}/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2Ff4%2F8e%2Fdc50a355493e8aeccaf36da675c2%2Fgettyimages-2249321766.jpg" class="img" alt="A building of the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, Georgia is shown. A sign with the CDC logo is in front of the building." loading="lazy"/> The Facilities of Illness Management and Prevention is headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia. Some facilities of CDC are alleged to turn into a part of AHA, however no particulars about logistics are public. Elijah Nouvelage/Getty Photos cover caption

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Elijah Nouvelage/Getty Photos Then and now, there are large logistical questions on how a middle in Atlanta with a whole bunch of workers members and a $1.4 billion finances might turn into a part of a brand new company, probably in Maryland or Washington, D.C.

With regards to AHA, Hacker says: "The query stays — what are their plans? Are they planning to roll out an enormous reorg? Are they planning to think about different alternate options?"

A former secretary is "baffled" If Kennedy and his crew at HHS needed to reorganize the Division of Well being and Human Companies and enlist Congress to authorize a brand new company, the general public could be seeing a really completely different course of unfold.

With regards to AHA, "there isn't a finances authority to create a brand new company, there is not any congressional framework for what that appears like, there is not any workers numbers," says Kathleen Sebelius, the previous governor of Kansas who served as well being secretary beneath President Obama.

<img src="https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims3/default/strip/false/crop/2666x3554+416+0/resize/1100/quality/50/format/jpeg/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2Faf%2Fa2%2F5031e34646bbb06cf68003a39d43%2Fap16250721284312.jpg" data-template="https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims3/default/strip/false/crop/2666x3554+416+0/resize/{width}/quality/{quality}/format/{format}/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2Faf%2Fa2%2F5031e34646bbb06cf68003a39d43%2Fap16250721284312.jpg" class="img" alt="Kathleen Sebelius is shown in a portrait; she is gesticulating with her hands." loading="lazy"/> Kathleen Sebelius, pictured at a panel occasion in 2016, arrange the Administration for Group Dwelling when she was President Obama's well being secretary. Charlie Riedel/AP cover caption

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Charlie Riedel/AP That lack of engagement with Congress, she says, additionally reveals in Kennedy's disregard for lawmakers' intent when he eradicated workers and packages throughout the DOGE-fueled firings in April 2025.

"What I discovered once I was [secretary] is that loads of the entities that appeared to me to be redundant had underlying congressional authorization — they handed a particular invoice, it had particular appropriations — and in my day, with my president, we paid loads of consideration to that," she says. The firings directed by Kennedy and DOGE included many places of work required by Congress that haven't been reconstituted elsewhere at HHS, regardless of his promise that the "core features" of the well being businesses could be preserved.

"A variety of what I see a minimum of in these restructuring paperwork beneath Secretary Kennedy simply completely are baffling to me," Sebelius says. She mentions the plan to dismantle the Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response (ASPR), which responds to pure disasters and pandemic threats, and the elimination of a number of HHS regional places of work that states depend on.

Sebelius additionally has the angle of getting created a brand new company throughout her tenure: the Administration for Group Dwelling, which helps seniors and other people with disabilities stay at residence.

"We took a yr to have listening classes to actually deliver a agency proposal," Sebelius says. "It in the end was in a finances doc, and had workers suggestions and jurisdiction suggestions."

She says by that point, "we had buy-in from — not solely key members on the Hill — however key members within the communities throughout the nation."

With regards to the Administration for a Wholesome America, "I do not see any of that happening," she says.

By the way, the Administration for Group Dwelling is likely one of the entities slated to be dismantled as an unbiased company and built-in into AHA.

Employees numbers confusion Whereas Trump administration officers work quietly on a plan to create an AHA entity on the company with out enter or funding from Congress, the American public is left with well being businesses diminished by a yr of personnel cuts.

Precisely how a lot HHS has shrunk due to Kennedy's restructuring, DOGE-led buyouts, and retirements, is troublesome to pin down. HHS has declined a number of requests from NPR to supply the present variety of workers, however the said objective when the reorganization was introduced in March was to cut back the workers by 20,000 individuals or about 20% of the workforce.

When Kennedy took workplace, 88,731 workers labored throughout HHS, in accordance with an official staffing plan from November 2024. The newest model of that plan, dated September 2025, reveals 79,717 HHS workers, which represents a lower of solely 10%.

It is not clear if that headcount contains workers whose firings have been blocked by the courts and are on administrative go away. Hacker, the previous CDC middle director, is aware of of workers who've been in that state of affairs since April. "They're getting a paycheck, they're getting their advantages, they're simply not working of their jobs," she says. Different workers who had been fired have been introduced again.

Simply this week, 400 occupational security workers at CDC who had been on administrative go away had been all of a sudden ordered again to work with out clarification. And about thousand HHS staff fired throughout the shutdown had been introduced again as a part of a deal to reopen the federal government. They surprise if they're going to be re-fired on the finish of January when that deal expires.

The entire businesses which are slated to turn into a part of AHA have had deep RIFs, or reductions in power, particularly CDC and SAMHSA, the psychological well being and substance abuse company. "There have been individuals in my middle [at CDC] that received riffed a number of occasions — some had been introduced again after which some had been riffed once more," says Hacker. "It is a very chaotic state of affairs."

An train in branding? The present CDC official predicts that Kennedy and his allies will create a pilot or initiative at HHS "someway" to have the ability to declare success in creating the Administration for a Wholesome America. "They need issues quick, they need it to be vivid and glossy, they need to seize the eye of the general public, they usually need it to seem like successful up entrance."

<img src="https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims3/default/strip/false/crop/5724x3816+0+0/resize/1100/quality/50/format/jpeg/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F40%2Fd2%2F4c2336654dbc8ddd213df56469d5%2Fgettyimages-2246396477.jpg" data-template="https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims3/default/strip/false/crop/5724x3816+0+0/resize/{width}/quality/{quality}/format/{format}/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F40%2Fd2%2F4c2336654dbc8ddd213df56469d5%2Fgettyimages-2246396477.jpg" class="img" alt="Secretary Kennedy is shown seated in a modern white armchair. An American flag is on his left. " loading="lazy"/> Secretary Kennedy is pictured at an occasion known as the MAHA Summit in November. Kennedy interviewed Vice President JD Vance, and it was carried stay on Fox Information. Alex Wong/Getty Photos cover caption

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Alex Wong/Getty Photos The official doesn't suppose it will likely be an precise new company funded and backed by Congress. They suppose Kennedy will discover groups and initiatives that had been already occurring at HHS associated to vitamin, health and power illness prevention and "model" them as "MAHA wins" to claim that the secretary achieved the objectives of the brand new AHA company, with out having to interact with Congress.

Sebelius is skeptical of the concept Kennedy can create something near a brand new company on his personal. "You are able to do lots on paper and play musical chairs all you need, however on the finish of the day, they're gonna should have some funding and a few jurisdiction."

She says lawmakers in Congress are both going to purchase into Kennedy's plan to create AHA or reject it. "It is actually unclear to me what they're gonna do."