WASHINGTON — Both Democratic and Republican senators who oversee federal spending seemed skeptical of proposed cuts to health research and public health in the White House’s budget, potentially teeing up a congressional package that ignores many of the administration’s most dramatic proposals for a second year.
During a Senate appropriations health subcommittee hearing Tuesday, lawmakers questioned health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on how his department could tackle chronic disease, smoking cessation, and cancer research with a proposed 2027 fiscal budget that would cut the department by 12%.
The request, which is broadly similar to what was proposed last year, includes deep cuts to the National Institutes of Health, the elimination of a health research agency, and the creation of a new agency devoted to chronic diseases called the Administration for a Healthy America.
