By MIKE STOBBE – AP Medical Writer
NEW YORK (AP) — A draft budget proposal circulating among federal officials would dramatically deepen cuts at the nation’s top health agency, eliminating some public health programs entirely and serving as a roadmap for more mass firings.
The document suggests a cut in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ discretionary spending by as much as one-third, or tens of billions of dollars, according to public health experts familiar with its contents.
Though it’s preliminary, the draft gives an indication of the Trump administration’s priorities as it prepares its 2026 fiscal year budget proposal to Congress. It comes amid massive funding and job cuts already underway across much of the federal government.
The HHS plan lays out a reorganization of its many agencies and offices and calls for eliminating or whittling away dozens of programs. Among them: Head Start, a development program for more than half a million of the country’s neediest children, as well as programs focused on teen pregnancy and family planning, Lyme disease, and global health.
The National Institutes of Health — the world’s largest funder of biomedical research – would see its budget shrink to $27.3 billion, from $48.5 billion. Beyond the monetary cuts is a restructuring of the agency that’s long been called the government’s crown jewel — reducing its 27 institutes and centers down to eight.
The budget of the Food and Drug Administration would be cut by nearly half a billion dollars, to $6.5 billion, in part by eliminating some longtime agency responsibilities and shifting them to states.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s core budget would be slashed to about $5 billion, from more than $9 billion, with a number of programs eliminated and some transferred into a proposed new agency to be called the Administration for a Healthy America.
The draft was not officially released or confirmed by the Trump administration, and it’s not clear what will make it into the final budget proposal. “But it’s an important indication about what the administration is thinking about,” said David Harvey, executive director of the National Coalition of STD Directors, an association that represents people running health department programs to track and prevent sexually transmitted infections. “We are taking it very seriously.”
The proposal was first reported by The Washington Post. The Associated Press saw a copy of the 64-page document, dated April 10.
The draft is the result of discussions between HHS and the White House Office of Management and Budget. It’s called a “passback” document — it’s what OMB passed back to HHS after both had input.
An HHS spokesman did not respond to an AP request for comment Thursday.
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Lauran Neergaard and Matthew Perrone in Washington, D.C., contributed to this report.
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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
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