Department of Health and Human Services officials during a closed-door briefing could not give a full accounting of the number of people who have been fired from the agency, a Democratic aide for the House Energy and Commerce Committee said Friday.
HHS officials insisted to committee staff that the agency’s massive staffing cuts had been performed “with a scalpel” and “with nuance” but they did not have any numbers of who had been laid off, the aide told reporters.
“There did not seem to be a function level understanding of who had been terminated,” they added.
The briefing was held because members from both parties have indicated they were caught off guard by the sudden decision to cut as many as 10,000 workers from the health agency and have been asking for answers about the full scope of the effort.
Democrats on the committee are demanding HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. answer their questions in person at a hearing. They are concerned the agency’s core functions are being put at risk by the sweeping layoffs.
A Democratic aide on Friday said Kennedy may testify by June about the agency’s budget proposal, but they were told by HHS officials he would not be able to answer questions about the staffing reductions for 60 days, due to an Office of Personnel Management (OPM) statute.
“It’ll be very interesting if he does try to slide in here … on day 58 and cites that as a reason that he can’t [talk about layoffs],” the aide said. “That is not consistent with the new era of transparency that has been promised.”
HHS has set a June 2 deadline to complete the cuts, including re-hiring anyone who may have been laid off by mistake. Kennedy said in a recent interview there could be up to 20 percent of the workforce who were mistakenly terminated and could be brought back.
But agency officials Friday told the committee staff they were not aware of any such plan and were only going to bring people back on a “case by case basis,” per a Democratic aide in attendance.
