An antenna from the centers for the Medicare and Medicaid services building on March 19, 2025 in Woodlawn, Maryland.
Kayla Bartkowski | Getty images
The Medicare & Medicaid service centers have reduced the jobs of their minority health office and other divisions, according to CNBC, since Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Reeve to the United States Department of Health.
During a virtual meeting of all hands with employees on Friday, the interim administrator of CMS, Stephanie Carlton, detailed some of the specific offices in the agency affected by cuts under the broader plan of Kennedy to restructure the Department of Human Health and Services, or HHS.
CNBC saw a transcription of the internal meeting, which was the first in CMS since HHS employees began receiving notifications on Tuesday on whether they had lost their work as part of the cuts.
Kennedy's plan implies cutting 10,000 jobs in HHS, including only 300 in CMS but a much higher number in other agencies. CMS supervises health insurance programs for 160 million Americans, along with other vital medical care functions, and the Trump administration has tried to minimize the effects that their cuts to government spending will have in the popular Medicare program.
But Kennedy said Thursday that part of the staff and programs in different federal agencies affected by their scan reductions will be reinstated “because we will make mistakes.”
Carlton on Friday did not indicate whether CMS employees will be reinstated, but said: “We believe it is a painful part of [the cuts] That affects the people who care about us is finished. ”
“I don't want to make promises that nothing will happen, but they are definitely the ones I know,” he told the workers, referring to the agency's cuts. She said the layoffs were not easy, but emphasized that CMS's leadership had to balance the agency's mission with achieving efficiency in HHS.
He added that the paperwork of Dr. Mehmet Oz should be completed later on Friday, one day after the Senate confirmed it to execute CMS. Oz, a celebrity television presenter and former candidate for the United States Senate, would like to make another call from all hands on Monday, said Carlton. Once called “America's Doctor”, Oz is now better known for the doubtful promotion of supplements and hormones without support for scientific evidence.
Employment cuts in the HHS are added to about 10,000 employees who chose to leave the department since President Donald Trump assumed the position, through voluntary separation offers. Combined, they will lead to the Federal Health Department to throw approximately a quarter of their workforce, reducing it to 62,000 employees.
Kennedy's restructuring occurs when the United States dealt with one of the worst measles outbreaks in more than two decades, and when the avian flu spreads in wild birds worldwide and is causing outbreaks in dairy cows of poultry and the United States, with several recent human cases. The Food and Medicines Administration of the United States is suspending efforts to improve its milk, cheese and pet food flu tests due to mass staff cuts at the agency, Reuters reported Thursday.
CMS did not immediately respond to a request for comments.
CMS cut programs
She said the minority health office was affected by cuts. The segment works with local and federal partners to eliminate health disparities and improve health results for people of all minority populations, according to the CMS website. Carry out research and analysis to develop new solutions to reduce costs, prevent diseases and reduce the incidence and severity of chronic diseases in the United States.
The office was authorized by the Law on Low Price Health Care more than a decade, so closing it completely may be against the law. It seems to be among the victims of the ideological campaign of the Trump administration against diversity, equity and inclusion, or Dei, initiatives.
CMS understands that you must continue to fulfill the responsibilities of that office under legal law, Carlton said. She said CMS will appoint a new Minority Health Director Office.
But he did not explicitly said if the current office director, Dr. Martin Mendoza, had resigned or was affected by the cuts.
But “probably the largest group that was affected” was the program of operations of the program and the local commitment, said Carlton. That office is responsible for implementing and supervising Medicare and Medicaid programs and participating with interested parties locally. Carlton said the cuts there tried to attack areas where there were several divisions with a “similar mission.”
An office responsible for managing the agency's subsidies and contracts was affected, and the Medicare-Medicaid Coordination Office was also seen, Carlton added. The latter serves eligible people dual for Medicaré and Medicaid, developing models to improve the coordination of care.
Some of that work will be collected by others in CMS or outside the agency, said Carlton.
He pointed out that CMS will retain internal teams that handle communication, human resources and information technology. The agency's team was not affected at all “due to the sensitivity of many of our data sets,” Carlton said.
