Robert F. Kennedy Jr., President Donald Trump’s nominee for secretary of Health and Human Services, testifies during his Senate Finance Committee confirmation hearing at the Dirksen Senate Office Building on Jan. 29, 2025, in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s alternating views on vaccines, reproductive rights and public health issues were a central focus at his first confirmation hearing Wednesday, with Democratic senators expressing dismay at his nomination and Republicans signaling he’ll likely have their support.
Kennedy pledged to bring “radical transparency” to the Department of Health and Human Services if confirmed by the U.S. Senate, though he didn’t detail his plans for large-scale health care programs like Medicare and Medicaid during the nearly four-hour hearing.
Kennedy repeatedly testified before the Finance Committee that he wants to reduce chronic illnesses throughout the country and let scientific research lead the way.
But Democratic senators were skeptical he would improve the country’s overall health outcomes if confirmed as HHS secretary, listing off several of his past claims not backed by research or medicine.
“For a long time the nation has been locked in a divisive health care debate about who pays. When health care costs reach 20%, there are no good options, only bad ones,” Kennedy said. “Shifting the burden around between government and corporations and insurers and providers and families is like rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.”
Kennedy said that if confirmed he would try to ensure federal spending on nutrition programs goes to “healthy foods” and bolster scrutiny of “chemical additives in our food supply.”
“We will remove financial conflicts of interest from our agencies. We will create an honest, unbiased, gold standard science at HHS, accountable to the president, to Congress and to the American people,” Kennedy added. “We will reverse the chronic disease epidemic and put the nation back on the road to good health.”
Vermont independent Sen. Bernie Sanders questioned how senators or Americans could trust what Kennedy said during the hearing, given his rapid change in opinion on vaccine safety and the government’s role in abortion access, compared to comments made just last year.
“Tell me why you think people should have confidence in your consistency and in your work, when you really made a major U-turn on an issue of that importance in such a short time?” Sanders said.
‘Conspiracy theories, quacks, charlatans’
Finance Committee ranking member Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat, rebuked Kennedy for some of his prior comments on vaccine safety, saying he “embraced conspiracy theories, quacks, charlatans.”
“Mr. Kennedy has changed his views so often, it is nearly impossible to know where he stands on so many of the basic issues that impact Americans’ daily lives,” Wyden said.
Kennedy testified at several points during the hearing that he supports certain vaccines, including measles and polio, and science-backed research into medical treatments.
“I support vaccines. I support the childhood schedule. I will do that,” Kennedy said. “The only thing I want is good science and that’s it.”
New Hampshire Democratic Sen. Maggie Hassan said Americans should be proud that vaccines have largely eradicated deadly diseases within the United States, including polio and smallpox.
“I am extremely concerned that as secretary, you would be able to halt critical vaccine research and to exploit parents’ natural worries by advising them not to vaccinate their children,” Hassan said. “This will lead to more children getting sick and some will even die.
“Before the measles vaccine about 500 American children died a year from measles. This is too much of a risk for our country and there is no reason that any of us should believe that you have reversed the anti-vaccine views that you have promoted for 25 years.”
Abortion pill
Kennedy, who made several different statements about abortion access during his unsuccessful run for president, pledged during the hearing to implement President Donald Trump’s agenda on reproductive rights, whatever that might be.
Anti-abortion groups are advocating for the Trump administration to restrict access to medication abortion, a two-drug regimen consisting of mifepristone and misoprostol that’s approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration up to 10 weeks gestation. The FDA is housed within HHS.
“President Trump has asked me to study the safety of mifepristone,” Kennedy said. “He has not yet taken a stand on how to regulate it. Whatever he does, I will implement those policies. I will work with this committee to make those policies make sense.”
The FDA originally approved mifepristone in 2000 and made several changes to prescribing guidelines in 2016.
Those changes included increasing the gestational limit from seven to 10 weeks and making dosage and timing changes for both pharmaceuticals. The updated guidelines allowed qualified health care providers with the ability to prescribe medications to do so with mifepristone, not just doctors. And the requirement for three in-person doctor’s office visits was removed.
Numerous medical organizations, including the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, the American Medical Association and the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine filed briefs to the Supreme Court last year attesting to the safety and efficacy of mifepristone in a case that ultimately left access to medication abortion intact.
Kennedy also said during the hearing that he supports Trump’s policies on the Title X family planning grants program, including blocking federal funding from going to any organizations that perform or refer patients for abortions.
Federal law prevents taxpayer dollars from going to abortions, with exceptions for rape, incest or the life of the pregnant patient.
Emergency medical treatment
Kennedy didn’t appear familiar with a federal law that ensures patients access to emergency health care regardless of insurance status.
The law, known as the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act, or EMTALA, was a point of strong disagreement between Republican-controlled states and the Biden administration after the Supreme Court ended the constitutional right to abortion in 2022.
It is the subject of an ongoing case that made its way up to the Supreme Court before being sent back to the circuit court, which heard arguments in December.
Nevada Democratic Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto asked Kennedy a series of questions about protections under EMTALA during the hearing, starting with whether a woman experiencing a heart attack should receive care under that federal law regardless of her insurance status.
Kennedy said yes. But he said he didn’t know if the law would protect a woman experiencing life-threatening bleeding from an incomplete miscarriage whose doctor said she needed an abortion.
Kennedy struggled to answer another question from Cortez Masto about what authorities HHS has to enforce EMTALA at hospitals that receive Medicare funding, saying he thought he had budget power but nothing else.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, she said, “actually investigates complaints of EMTALA violations, as well as the Health and Human Services inspector general, who, by the way, was just recently fired by Donald Trump.”
“So you will be enforcing EMTALA laws, and it’s important that you understand their impact and don’t play politics with the patient presenting at the ER based on a position that this administration has taken,” Cortez Masto said.
Cassidy questions on Medicaid
Kennedy similarly struggled to answer questions from Louisiana Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy on Medicare and Medicaid, in an exchange that could lead to significant hurdles for his confirmation if Cassidy does not support him.
Cassidy — a doctor and chairman of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, which holds its confirmation hearing for Kennedy on Thursday — repeatedly asked Kennedy how he’d improve Medicaid.
Kennedy listed off his criticisms of the program, before he said states should experiment with pilot programs and that the goals should be value-based care, transparency and accountability.
Kennedy said there were also many options through telemedicine and artificial intelligence before talking about AI nurses.
Kennedy, when asked by Cassidy about people who are eligible for both Medicare and Medicaid, said he thinks the answer to that is “that the programs are consolidated, that they’re integrated, and the care is integrated.”
But Kennedy, when pressed on how he would handle that, didn’t have an answer. He also got basic facts about Medicaid, including that costs are shared between the federal and state governments, incorrect.
“I’m not exactly sure, because I’m not in there,” Kennedy said. “I mean, it is difficult to integrate them, because Medicare is under fee-for-service and is paid for by employer taxes. Medicaid is fully paid for by the federal government, and it’s not fee-for-service. So I do not know the answer to that. I look forward to exploring options with you.”
Kennedy said in response to a question from Cassidy about the differences between traditional Medicare and Medicare Advantage that people have the choice “right now,” though he said he expects more people would like to be on Medicare Advantage if it wasn’t for the more expensive price.
COVID-19 claims
Another, potentially damaging exchange for Kennedy’s confirmation prospects, came when Colorado Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet asked a series of questions about previous statements Kennedy has made on various public health issues.
“Mr. Kennedy, did you say that COVID-19 was a genetically engineered bioweapon that targets Black and white people, but spared Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese people?” Bennet asked.
Kennedy responded that he “didn’t say it was deliberately targeted.”
Kennedy said he “probably” had made comments that Lyme disease was a military engineered bioweapon.
Kennedy said he wasn’t sure if he had written in one of his books that it is “undeniable that African AIDS is an entirely different disease from Western AIDS,” following a question from Bennet.
Kennedy, however, denied making statements that pesticides cause children to become transgender.
Bennet said he would have those prior Kennedy statements entered into the committee’s official record.
This post was originally authored and published by Jennifer Shutt from AZ Mirror via RSS Feed. Join today to get your news feed on Nationwide Report®.
