An aerial of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services constructing on March 19, 2025 in Woodlawn, Maryland.
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The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has slashed jobs from its minority health office and other divisions, CNBC has learned, as Robert F. Kennedy Jr. upends the U.S. health department.
During a virtual all-hands meeting with employees on Friday, CMS acting Administrator Stephanie Carlton detailed a few of the specific offices on the agency impacted by cuts under Kennedy’s broader plan to restructure the Department of Health and Human Services, or HHS.
CNBC viewed a transcript of the inner meeting, which was the primary at CMS since HHS employees began to receive notifications Tuesday about whether or not they had lost their jobs as a part of the cuts.
Kennedy’s plan involves slashing 10,000 jobs at HHS, including just 300 at CMS but far greater numbers at other agencies. CMS oversees medical health insurance programs for 160 million Americans, together with other vital healthcare functions — and the Trump administration has tried to downplay the results its cuts to government spending could have on the favored Medicare program.
But Kennedy said Thursday that some personnel and programs at different federal agencies affected by his sweeping reductions will likely be reinstated “because we’ll make mistakes.”
Carlton on Friday didn’t indicate whether any CMS employees will get reinstated, but said “we do think that painful a part of [the cuts] that affects people we care about is finished.”
“I do not need to make guarantees that nothing will ever occur, but these are definitely those I’m aware of,” she told staff, referring to the cuts on the agency. She said the layoffs were demanding, but emphasized that CMS leadership needed to balance the agency’s mission with achieving efficiency across HHS.
She added that Dr. Mehmet Oz’s paperwork must be accomplished afterward Friday, a day after he was confirmed by the Senate to run CMS. Oz, a star TV host and former U.S. Senate candidate, would really like to carry one other all-hands call on Monday, Carlton said. Once called “America’s Doctor,” Oz is now more known for dubious promotion of supplements and hormones unsupported by scientific evidence.
The job cuts across HHS are along with about 10,000 employees who opted to go away the department since President Donald Trump took office, through voluntary separation offers. Combined, they may result in the federal health department shedding a few quarter of its workforce, shrinking it to 62,000 employees.
Kennedy’s restructuring comes because the U.S. grapples with one in every of the worst measles outbreaks in greater than twenty years, and as bird flu spreads in wild birds worldwide and is causing outbreaks in poultry and U.S. dairy cows, with several recent human cases. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is suspending efforts to enhance its bird flu testing of milk, cheese and pet food on account of massive staff cuts on the agency, Reuters reported on Thursday.
CMS didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment.
The programs cut at CMS
She said the office of minority health was affected by the cuts. The segment works with local and federal partners to eliminate health disparities and improve health outcomes for people from all minority populations, in accordance with the CMS website. It conducts research and analyses to develop recent solutions for lowering costs, stopping diseases and reducing the incidence and severity of chronic diseases within the U.S.
The office was authorized by the Reasonably priced Care Act greater than a decade ago, so shuttering it entirely could also be against the law. It appears to be among the many victims of the Trump administration’s ideological campaign against diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI, initiatives.
CMS understands that it must proceed fulfilling the responsibilities of that office under statutory law, Carlton noted. She said CMS will appoint a brand new office of minority health director.
But she didn’t explicitly say whether the present director of the office, Dr. Martin Mendoza, had stepped down or was impacted by the cuts.
But “probably the most important group that was affected” was the Office of Program Operations & Local Engagement, Carlton said. That office is accountable for implementing and overseeing Medicare and Medicaid programs and interesting with stakeholders on the local level. Carlton said the cuts there tried to focus on areas where there have been several divisions with a “similar mission.”
An office accountable for managing the agency’s grants and contracts was impacted, and so was the Medicare-Medicaid Coordination Office, Carlton added. The latter serves people dually eligible for Medicare and Medicaid, developing models to enhance the coordination of look after them.
A few of that work will likely be picked up by others in CMS or from outside the agency, Carlton said.
She noted that CMS will retain in-house teams that handle communication, human resources and knowledge technology. The agency’s IT team was not affected in any respect “due to the sensitivity of a lot of our data sets,” Carlton said.
