Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has announced a sweeping restructuring of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) — eliminating an estimated 10,000 positions equal to a $1.8 billion annual reduction. For too long, HHS has been bloated, redundant, and misaligned with the real needs of the American people. HHS has ceased to be a responsive, effective steward of public health. Instead, it has grown into a slow-moving leviathan, riddled with redundancy and soaked in taxpayer dollars. A course correction — one that consolidates overlapping agencies with the intent of a more streamlined, mission-focused department, puts mission before empire, and outcomes before bureaucracy — is long overdue.
The disparate agencies at HHS often have duplicative functions leading to siloed approaches to addressing the department’s mission, the building of individual fiefdoms, and needless administrative spending that would not be tolerated anywhere except the federal government. A reorganization of the department has long been necessary to eliminate redundancy, deliver on HHS’s mission, and reduce wasteful spending.
Paragon has tackled problems at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in a 2023 report, Unauthorized & Unprepared: Refocusing the CDC after COVID-19.
