This week marks one year since Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was sworn in as Secretary of Health & Human Services. There’s no question that RFK Jr. and Trump have been a wrecking ball for American health care. RFK Jr. is currently overseeing the fallout after Trump and Republicans slashed over $1 trillion from Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act, the largest health care cuts in history, ripping away health care from over 15 million Americans, driving premium costs through the roof, shuttering hospitals and clinics across the country, and more. Among the lowlights of RFK Jr.’s personal first-year report card: gutting the CDC, science and innovation; putting children’s health and lives at risk by downgrading the U.S. child vaccine schedule; ignoring the worst measles outbreak in decades while continuing to spread anti-vax propaganda that caused it; and packing federal health advisory boards with anti-vaccine activists while recklessly pursuing widely discredited autism-vaccine link.
RFK Jr. has undeniably fueled distrust in science and weakened evidence-based federal health policies, undermined confidence in guidance, and eroded protections that millions rely on. The American people are paying attention, and they are furious. The GOP health care wrecking spree is deeply unpopular, with a bipartisan majority opposing their cuts and rising premiums. Families struggling to afford life-saving care won’t forget who left them out in the cold, and come election time, Republicans will pay for this crisis at the ballot box.
BY THE NUMBERS
- Over 15 million Americans are losing health care thanks to RFK Jr. and Trump, including seniors, children, veterans, and people with disabilities, to pay for tax breaks for billionaires like Elon Musk and large corporations.
- Trump and RFK Jr. cut over $1 trillion from Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act (ACA) to pay for handouts to the wealthiest Americans.
- Premiums are doubling and tripling for over 20 million hardworking Americans, including small business owners, farmers, and older adults, thanks to RFK Jr. and Trump.
- Trump and RFK Jr. put 750+ hospitals and clinics at risk of closing or reducing services, forcing more Americans to travel farther for maternity care and emergency rooms, and face longer wait times and higher costs.
- RFK Jr. and Trump have targeted tens of thousands of critical health staffers at HHS for layoffs.
- RFK Jr. has spread dangerous misinformation and discouraged vaccination while presiding over the largest measles outbreak in decades, including the deaths of two unvaccinated children in Texas and a raging outbreak currently happening in South Carolina, where 93 percent of cases come from people who are unvaccinated or have unknown vaccination status.
- The Trump administration oversaw a 4 percent median increase in drug prices, faster than overall inflation, despite their so-called deal with 16 companies. In fact, these 16 companies raised the prices of 872 drugs under their purview.
- A majority of Americans disapprove of RFK Jr.’s job performance, and 57 percent are not confident in vaccine information cited by him.
RFK Jr. and Trump Have Devastated the American Health Care System and Destroyed Public Health
Republicans Doubled And Tripled Premiums For Over 20 Million People Who Buy Health Insurance On Their Own. As HHS Secretary, RFK Jr. has overseen the end of key ACA tax credits for working families, raising costs and ripping away health care from millions of Americans. Throughout Open Enrollment, Americans logged into healthcare.gov or state-based marketplaces and found that their premiums had doubled or tripled this year thanks to the GOP. Unable to absorb Republican cost hikes, 5 million people are expected to lose their health care altogether. Current data shows that around one million fewer Americans have been able to obtain health care through the ACA as of early February.
Trump and Republicans Are Driving Hospitals, Clinics, and Nursing Homes Into the Ground. Trump’s Big, Ugly Bill cut over $500 billion from hospitals and other essential care facilities. As a result, the Trump administration has put 750+ hospitals and clinics – including
over 330 rural hospitals, 100 urban hospitals, 570 nursing homes, and nearly 200 Planned Parenthood health centers across the country – at risk of closure. Thirteen hospitals, 26 maternity wards, and 150 clinics announced closure since the passage of the bill. Hospital closures have a detrimental effect on their communities. Hospital closures mean crowded emergency rooms, longer waits for ambulances, longer hospital stays for patients, fewer patient beds, and greater patient mortality for Americans. Worse still, Trump and Republicans’ hospital closures will raise prices for a hospital stay by an average of $500 at nearby facilities that remain open. Republicans even knew the threat their massive cuts posed to hospitals, and launched a pity fund to distract from the rural health care collapse they are causing — with funding that falls far short of closing the gap left by gutting Medicaid and defunding hospitals.
Trump and RFK Jr. Are Destroying Our Public Health Infrastructure. In the past year, RFK Jr. has slashed over $4.5 billion in funding for the National Institutes of Health (NIH), terminating and freezing thousands of jobs for scientists and staff members in the process, including an NIH whistleblower who warned that the steps taken by the Trump administration were endangering public health. Trump and RFK Jr. have also blocked hundreds of millions in funding for CDC health programs that addressed topics such as youth violence prevention, gun injury and death prevention research, and efforts targeting diabetes, chronic kidney disease, and tobacco use.
RFK Jr. Is Putting Lives on the Line by Eliminating Vaccine Requirements. RFK Jr. instructed HHS to stop recommending the measles, mumps, rubella, and varicella combined shot for children under age 4 despite no scientific evidence backing this decision. He also eliminated recommendations for children and pregnant people to receive COVID-19 vaccines and restricted access to the COVID-19 vaccine by recommending that only people with certain health conditions or those aged 65 and older get the updated vaccine. The results of this have been expected: the largest measles outbreak in the 21st century, impacting eight states so far and hitting South Carolina the worst, with the vast majority of cases coming from unvaccinated children. His rhetoric is sowing public confusion about vaccines; 57 percent of Americans are not confident in the vaccine information cited by him.
RFK Jr. Jeopardized Future Vaccine Development. After firing all 17 members of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), RFK Jr. has filled the committee with COVID-19 deniers, vaccine skeptics, critics of the pandemic response, and spreaders of misinformation. In January 2026, he also added two more anti-vaccine members to the ACIP board who self-proclaim that they are “critical of mainstream vaccine science.” He also kicked top medical organizations out of workgroups for establishing vaccine recommendations. Trump and RFK Jr. have also put future vaccine research at stake by canceling over $500 million in contracts and funding for the development of mRNA vaccines to fight respiratory illnesses, canceled contracts worth nearly $600 million for vaccines for flu subtypes that could trigger future pandemics, and ended two major HIV vaccine studies.
Trump and RFK Jr. Continue to Spread Deadly Misinformation. Senate Democrats called out RFK Jr. for spreading misinformation during his confirmation hearings, and his lies have continued while serving as Trump’s HHS Secretary. In September, RFK Jr. and Trump promoted an unproven link between autism and Tylenol with no evidence. Several experts in the medical community denounced these remarks as irresponsible and “dangerous advice.” In October, RFK Jr. tried to walk back his claimed link between Tylenol and autism by saying, “We’ve all said from the beginning that the causative association between Tylenol given in pregnancy … is not sufficient to say it definitely caused autism, but it is very suggestive.” Regardless, polling suggests that damage from RFK Jr.’s reckless lies has already started setting in. A KFF poll found that 77 percent of people have heard RFK Jr.’s link between Tylenol and autism, with a majority reporting they weren’t sure whether it was true or not.