Five months after the Trump administration rolled out its grand plans for a signature “Make America Healthy Again” agency, Congress has shied away from taking steps to bring the new agency to fruition.
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced his plan for the agency in March amid a wide-scale restructuring of the department intended to streamline duplicative efforts and cut costs.
But the department’s plans to consolidate the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health, the Health Resources and Services Administration, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health and portions of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention into the new Administration for a Healthy America, or AHA, have been stalled by ongoing litigation and a lack of congressional buy-in.
