Health and Human Services

Written in January 2012

Originally published 1-18-2012

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is an unconstitutional department employing some 65,000 unnecessary federal bureaucrats. The HHS budget comprises more than 23% of all federal spending, nearly 90% of which is spent on the Medicare and Medicaid entitlement programs, whose combined Major Reported Fiscal Exposure (unfunded liabilities) is nearly $90 trillion (just over 2/3 of the total M.R.F.E.).

If elected to the 113th Congress, I would vote to abolish the HHS; eliminate all spending on the NIH, FDA, CDC, HRSA, SAMHSA, AHRQ, ACF, AOA, and the IHS; and gradually phase out the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (involving means-testing for beneficiaries and other reforms), saving about $100 billion annually. I would also vote to repeal the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (Obamacare), saving another $94 billion annually. To phase out the HHS would eventually eliminate $700 billion from the current annual federal budget.

Additionally, I would urge the state and local governments, unions, charity and religious organizations, and private enterprises to increase their provision of health services and insurance benefits during the process of transition away from the current system of centralized federal planning of the provision of health and human services.