STAT+: RFK Jr.’s new chronic disease agency faces a road block: Congress
The new agency at the center of RFK Jr.'s agenda is hitting its first hurdle: Congress.
The new agency at the center of health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s agenda is hitting its first hurdle: Congress.
The administration’s sweeping reorganization plan for the Department of Health and Human Services would shrink the National Institutes of Health and slash a litany of disease prevention programs while making the Administration for a Healthy America a new crown jewel of the agency, focused on chronic disease. The new division would absorb existing federal agencies and programs, including those responsible for mental health and substance use prevention programs and curbing HIV.
The administration has been trying to sell the plan to Congress, which is in charge of appropriating funding, and would likely have to vote to create the AHA and give it responsibilities and a budget. But congressional resistance to Kennedy’s reorganization threatens to derail the plan.
