Officials at agencies throughout the Department of Health and Human Services say they are bracing for steep layoffs, as Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and his aides are nearing their final decisions on a sweeping restructuring of the department.
Decisions by Kennedy and his team on the changes to the department’s makeup and organization are expected within a week or two, multiple senior health officials have been told. One official said aides have begun drafting a reorganization announcement.
The department did not respond to a request for comment.
In addition to the formal head of the White House’s Department of Government Efficiency team, Amy Gleason, several other members of DOGE are HHS employees. Some have been intimately involved with the plans, including former insurance executive Brad Smith, who was a top Medicare and Medicaid official during the first Trump administration.
The expected cuts at the department under the reorganization and “reduction-in-force” plans ordered by the White House come after many workers have already been fired or let go throughout the nation’s health agencies through other moves, like earlier attempts to purge thousands of probationary workers, end fellowship programs and terminate contractor agreements.
Here is the latest we know about the reorganization at several agencies within HHS, based on conversations with more than a dozen health officials who were not authorized to speak publicly.
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