Section 3.5: Department of Health and Human Services
“If the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) were a separate country, its approximately $1.6 trillion budget would rank as the world’s fifth-largest national budget.”
,p>Is this true? More or less. The HHS budget is slightly higher now. [Source for the country rankings]
Full contextual analysis of Section 3.5: Department of Health and Human Services here.
“Under President Trump, HHS was dedicated to serving “all Americans from conception to natural death, including those individuals and families who face…economic and social well-being challenges.”
WOW. The ellipsis is his, by the way, not mine. “We even cared about the poors!” The notion that the Trump administration cared about any Americans’ health and well-being is not supported by any evidence. There is, however, an abundance of evidence to the contrary. Under Trump:
- More than 450,000 Americans are dead from COVID-19, in part because of his lying and mishandling of it. COVID-19 mortality in the U.S. was 40% higher than the average of the other wealthy nations in the G7.
- Life expectancy fell by 1.13 years, the biggest decrease since World War II.
- Regulatory rollbacks resulted in 22,000 excess deaths from such hazards in 2019 alone.
- Trump pushed through a $1.9 trillion tax cut for the wealthy, creating a budget hole that he then used to justify cutting food and housing assistance for the needy.
- He tried, but failed, to repeal the ACA, then made every effort to undermine it, pushing up the number of uninsured Americans by 2.3 million.
- He denied entry to refugees fleeing violence, abused immigrant detainees, and penalized immigrants for accessing basic social services.
Full contextual analysis of Section 3.5: Department of Health and Human Services here.
“Under President Biden, the mission has shifted to “promoting equity in everything we do” for the sake of “populations sharing a particular characteristic” including race, sexuality, gender identification, ethnicity, and a host of other categories.”
In this context, “equity” means ensuring fair access to health care and social services for underserved populations. This was the goal of the Biden Administration’s efforts, which appears to offend Severino. The focus on equity aims to reduce disparities in health outcomes based on factors such as race, gender, income, and geographic location. For example, during the COVID-19 pandemic, the administration emphasized equitable vaccine distribution to communities of color and rural areas that were disproportionately affected.
By “populations sharing a particular characteristic”, he’s talking about the focus on specific populations that have historically faced disparities in health outcomes, including racial and ethnic minorities, LGBTQ+ individuals, and others. The goal is to address these issues by improving access to care, combating discrimination in healthcare settings, and ensuring that public health initiatives are inclusive of all communities. This approach includes efforts to improve maternal health for women of color, address mental health and provide addiction services in underserved areas, and support LGBTQ+ health initiatives.
The phrase “for the sake of” implies that equity efforts are purely political or symbolic, rather than addressing real and documented health disparities. However, there is significant evidence that certain groups – such as racial minorities and LGBTQ+ individuals – face worse health outcomes50 due to factors like discrimination, lower access to healthcare, and higher rates of chronic conditions.
So, we can conclude here that Severino is completely ignoring the facts in favor of an ineffectual “colorblind” strategy that does nothing to reduce bad health outcomes for minorities.
Full contextual analysis of Section 3.5: Department of Health and Human Services here.
“As a result of HHS’s having lost its way, U.S. life expectancy, instead of returning to normal after the COVID-19 pandemic, continued to drop precipitously to levels not seen since 1996 with white populations alone losing 7 percent of their expected life span in just one year.”
This is misleading with the facts, and false with the blame.
It is true that U.S. life expectancy has dropped significantly during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), life expectancy in the U.S. fell by 1.8 years in 2020, largely due to COVID-19. By 2021, it had dropped further by nearly 2.7 years, marking the sharpest two-year decline since 1921-1923, when the Spanish flu was still affecting the population. (But that still doesn’t represent a 7% drop, as Severino claims.)
U.S. life expectancy has risen every single year of the Biden administration, and opioid overdoses have dropped precipitously.
Full contextual analysis of Section 3.5: Department of Health and Human Services here.
“From the moment of conception, every human being possesses inherent dignity and worth, and our humanity does not depend on our age, stage of development, race, or abilities. 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.”
Severino isn’t explicitly calling for a federal abortion ban, here (more for distancing the federal government from supporting abortion in any form), so I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt (ish) for now. (Spoiler: He calls for the equivalent of a federal abortion ban later in this section.) Let’s talk about the facts.
Abortion IS health care.
“Pregnancy imposes significant physiological changes on a person’s body. These changes can exacerbate underlying or preexisting conditions, like renal or cardiac disease, and can severely compromise health or even cause death. Determining the appropriate medical intervention depends on a patient’s specific condition. There are situations where pregnancy termination in the form of an abortion is the only medical intervention that can preserve a patient’s health or save their life.
“As physicians, we are focused on protecting the health and lives of the patients for whom we provide care. Without question, abortion can be medically necessary.” [Source]
Need More?
Full contextual analysis of Section 3.5: Department of Health and Human Services here.
“Radical actors inside and outside government are promoting harmful identity politics that replaces biological sex with subjective notions of “gender identity” and bases a person’s worth on his or her race, sex, or other identities.”
By “basing their worth”, Severino is implying that “radical actors” are valuing or assessing individuals based on characteristics like race, sex, gender identity, or other personal identities, rather than on individual abilities, actions, or merits.
A look at the way Olympic boxer Imane Khelif was treated by conservatives reveals that this is complete garbage. It was certainly not liberals or “radical actors” who accused Khelif of being transgender and harassed her mercilessly, ignoring her actual abilities, actions, talents, and merits, and making everything about her entirely about a gender identity that they’d completely fabricated in their minds (Khelif is not trans, conservatives simply deemed her “insufficiently female” for their liking.) If Severino were projecting any harder, here, he’d be on the moon.
“Right-wing extremists — including Donald Trump, J.D. Vance, Elon Musk — alongside gender-binary zealots like J.K. Rowling are currently hurling vitriol at a cis woman boxer, Imane Khelif of Algeria, following the athlete’s swift defeat of her Italian opponent in an Olympic match in Paris on Thursday. Khelif is a female athlete who was deemed by the International Olympic Committee to be eligible to compete. She is only the latest woman of color in sports to be deemed insufficiently female by a right-wing commentariat obsessed with forging the strictest gender binaries, contrary to social, biological, and medical realities.” [Source]
Full contextual analysis of Section 3.5: Department of Health and Human Services here.
“In the context of current and emerging reproductive technologies, HHS policies should never place the desires of adults over the right of children to be raised by the biological fathers and mothers who conceive them.”
This is an argument against certain types of IVF, surrogacy, adoption, and use of donor gametes to create families.
Full contextual analysis of Section 3.5: Department of Health and Human Services here.
“COVID-19 exposed the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) as perhaps the most incompetent and arrogant agency in the federal government. CDC continually misjudged COVID-19, from its lethality, transmissibility, and origins to treatments. We were told masks were not needed; then they were made mandatory. CDC botched the development of COVID tests when they were needed most. When it was too late, we were told to put our lives on hold for “two weeks to flatten the curve;” that turned into two years of interference and restrictions on the smallest details of our lives.”
The CDC did make some missteps, but calling it “perhaps the most incompetent and arrogant agency” is a significant overstatement.
The CDC, along with other health agencies, had to continuously update its understanding of the virus as new data emerged. Early in the pandemic, the full extent of COVID-19’s transmissibility and lethality was not well understood, leading to frequent updates in guidelines. This is typical in a rapidly evolving situation, though it caused confusion and frustration. Science changes its mind in the face of new evidence.
“Science is not the truth. Science is finding the truth. When science changes its opinion, it didn’t lie to you. It learned more.” – Brene Brown
We still don’t know the origins of the virus and never have, so for Severino to indicate that the CDC “misjudged” the origins is a lie. They haven’t judged them at all (although zoonotic transmission or a lab leak are leading theories.)
Full contextual analysis of Section 3.5: Department of Health and Human Services here.
“We have learned that when CDC says what people “should” do, it readily becomes a “must” backed by severe punishments, including criminal penalties.”
This is patently false. The CDC’s guidance and recommendations are advisory, not legally binding. The CDC doesn’t make laws. The enforcement of public health measures typically comes from state or local governments, not the CDC itself, which lacks the authority to impose any measures or penalties.
Full contextual analysis of Section 3.5: Department of Health and Human Services here.
“There is never any justification for ending a child’s life as part of research, and the research benefits from splicing or growing aborted fetal cells and aborted baby body parts can easily be provided by alternative sources. All such research should be prohibited as a matter of law and policy.”
This is a recommendation for banning stem cell research and other types of research using fetal cells. I touch on this in Section 3 quite a bit, so I won’t repeat that argument here – please do read it if you’re interested in how this type of research works and how banning it would impact society.
His assertion that children’s lives are “ended as part of research” is a bald-faced lie. There are ethical constructs surrounding how and when fetal cells can be used for research, and in the case of elective abortion, it is always arranged after the abortion was already decided upon and finalized. In the United States, laws regarding fetal tissue collection for research require informed consent from the woman donating the tissue, prohibit the buying and selling of fetal tissue for profit, and mandate that the collection process cannot influence the timing or method of an abortion to obtain the tissue; all governed under federal regulations outlined in the Public Health Service Act (PHSA) Section 498A and 498B.
Full contextual analysis of Section 3.5: Department of Health and Human Services here.