Good work by Sen. Tim Kaine earlier today (see his office’s statement to the press, below), holding crackpot/extremist RFK Jr.’s feet to the fire on his disgraceful, damaging “leadership” (as well as DOGE’s and the Trump administration’s vandalism, which RFK Jr. has done nothing to push back against) at HHS…
Today, during a Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee hearing, U.S. Senator Tim Kaine (D-VA) pressed Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. on the consequences of massive workforce cuts at HHS. Specifically, Kaine pressed Secretary Kennedy about how the workforce cuts have negatively impacted constituents’ ability to get questions answered by federal agencies.
“Where does the rubber meet the road on the 20,000 RIFs and layoffs?” said Kaine. “People not getting cancer trials, … state grants being cancelled, in Virginia losing $425 million in funding to the Virginia Department of Health.”
Kaine continued, “All of our offices do casework, and we get requests from constituents all the time. CMS is the largest agency in the federal government. Its budget is nearly twice the size of the Pentagon, and people who depend on Medicaid, Medicare, and the CHIP program really, really benefit—and it’s the most consistent in the top three or four in terms of constituent requests to my office.”
“In every Administration I’ve served with—Obama, Trump 1, Biden—I get answers to questions on behalf of constituents,” Kaine said. “Let me show you what CMS is now doing to answer constituent questions.”
“A hardworking retiree—patriotic tax-paying American who’s on Medicare—wrote to CMS a very simple question about Medicare. Couldn’t get an answer. Asked us to reach out,” said Kaine. “We reached out to the Medicare Part C and D Congressional Liaison Office, and here was their answer to our basic question: ‘Unfortunately, there is not an update to provide. With the recent change of Administration, we are unable to provide any information on matters related to Mr. X’s request.’”
Kaine continued, “If you’re just an everyday, hardworking American retiree on Medicare and you have a basic question about it, you ought to be able to get an answer—and I’m just going to say I shared this with my colleagues, and many of us are having the same experience where our constituents can’t get a basic question answered. I wonder if 20,000 fewer employees is connected to this.”
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