Health And Human Services Under Project 2025

Earlier this year Texas Signal published an introduction to Project 2025, also known as the Presidential Transition Project. From now until the Election we will be highlighting how Project 2025 would impact the lives of everyday Texans. This week we are taking a deep dive into the chapter on the Department of Health and Human Services.

A Radical New HHS

As he runs for president again, Donald Trump has desperately tried to distance himself from Project 2025, which is essentially a blueprint for his second term. That’s a difficult task given that over 80 percent of the authors previously served under the former president, as noted by Popular Information’s Judd Legum.

Roger Severino, who wrote the chapter about HHS, is no exception. The current Vice President of Domestic Policy at the Heritage Foundation, Severino previously served as the Director of the Office for Civil Rights in HHS during the Trump administration. And the vision that he paints for HHS in a new Trump term is quite radical: one that would look to reverse the FDA approval of mifepristone, curtail research into disease and cancer, enact new restrictions on Medicare and Medicaid, raise the price on prescription drugs, and even eliminate the popular Head Start program.

In the overview about HHS, Severino connects the decline in U.S. life expectancy to HHS “having lost its way.” Interestingly the only group mentioned is the white population. And while the life expectancy in the United States has declined over two decades, many experts including those from the Harvard School of Public Health attribute that to a lack of preventive care.

Nevertheless, Severino outlines what he would like to see as an overarching goal of HHS: to promote an anti-choice agenda. “The Secretary must ensure that all HHS programs and activities are rooted in a deep respect for innocent human life from day one until natural death: Abortion and euthanasia are not health care,” writes Severino. Not only does this premise mean even more constrictions on abortion (and very likely pursuing a national abortion ban), states with death with dignity laws, like Oregon, could see those gains reversed. 

The CDC 

Next, Severino turns to the CDC (The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention), which he admonishes for their response to the COVID-19 pandemic. After that he once again returns to the anti-choice agenda, stating that the CDC should “ensure that it is not promoting abortion as health care.”

New directives that the CDC would follow include funding “studies into the risk and complications of abortion and ensure that it corrects and does not promote misinformation regarding the comparative health and psychological benefits of childbirth versus the health and psychological risks of intentionally taking a human life through abortion.” The CDC would also work to reverse the FDA approval of mifepristone, one of two drugs administered for a medication abortion. Before that reversal, the CDC would look to restrict the shipping of abortion pills by curtailing telemedicine laws.

Ominously, the CDC in another Trump administration would ramp up its surveillance state, which could make the act of a miscarriage a crime. This data collection would exist nationally, not just in red states like Texas: “Because liberal states have now become sanctuaries for abortion tourism, HHS should use every available tool, including the cutting of funds, to ensure that every state reports exactly how many abortions take place within its borders, at what gestational age of the child, for what reason, the mother’s state of residence, and by what method.”

The National Institute of Health

The anti-abortion agenda also works its way towards the National Institute of Health, the primary source of medical research in the United States. Under Project 2025, crucial research would be stymied because of new bioethics reforms. “Research using human embryonic stem cells also involves the destruction of human life and should not be subsidized with taxpayer dollars,” writes Severino. Fetal tissue research goes back nearly a century and has led to breakthroughs for a number of medical advancements to treat polio, HIV, and several cancers. 

Severino also seeks to abolish “woke” from the NIH. In addition to ending the Office of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion, the NIH would abandon any attempts to diversity scientific conferences or symposiums. 

Medicare and Medicaid

Under the Biden Administration, Medicare was able to negotiate new drug pricing for several major medicines. That impact has helped millions of Americans better afford medication for things like Diabetes and Arthritis. Project 2025 calls for that landmark legislation to be repealed.

Revamping Medicaid is also a major priority for the new HHS. In addition to adding work requirements, they would also add targeted time limits on lifetime caps. While many states already ban Planned Parenthood from receiving Medicaid funds, Project 2025 would take that policy national.

Other Notable Project 2025 Goals

The final pages of the chapter on HHS are a collection of policy goals that would transform many public health programs. Severino calls for eliminating Head Start and the entire Office of Head Start because it is fraught with “scandal and abuse.” Head Start is a free program that provides educational services to children up to age five, including in Texas.

Overall Severino looks to target programs meant to enrich early childhood development, not just Head Start. Project 2025 also calls for prioritizing “funding for home-based childcare, not universal day care.”

Another area where a Trump-helmed HHS would have a major impact is on teen pregnancy prevention programs. They would likely take a page from Texas, where Title X programs can now no longer provide birth control to teens without parental consent. Abstinence would be the main priority for these teen programs. 

And lastly, the contraception mandate would be back. Project 2025 calls for restoring “Trump religious and moral exemptions to the contraceptive mandate.” Disturbingly, Severino also calls for reclassifying certain forms of emergency contraception, including the morning after pill as an “abortifacient.” The morning after pill (also known by its brand name Ella) is not an abortifacient.