Bobby Scott blasts HHS for eliminating federal poverty guidelines staff

This one, about Virginia Democrat Bobby Scott demanding that HHS reinstate the federal poverty guidelines staff, is a little inside baseball.

It’s not like cutting funding for cancer research or hiring a discredited vaccine skeptic to look into the causes of autism, but …

“Without dedicated and expert staff ensuring these updates are done in a timely and accurate manner, disruptions to service delivery are inevitable,” Scott wrote in a letter to HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., whose dumb “do more with less” approach to running the public health system had him eliminate the entire staff of the team within the Office of the Assistance Secretary for Planning and Evaluation responsible for setting federal poverty guidelines.

---

Related

• ‘Attack on public health’: HHS staff cuts will hurt Americans ‘every single day’
• Blue Ridge Poison Center: Too much vitamin A, touted as a measles cure, can kill you
• Senators to Robert F. Kennedy Jr.: You’re making America sick again

---

As with everything else the Trump/Project 2025 group have been doing, this one will end up disrupting benefits for tens of millions of families, low-income individuals, seniors, people with disabilities, children and pregnant women.

Like the millionaires and billionaires in charge of things in Trump 2.0 care, right?

“Any staffing changes that disrupt the HHS’ ability to fulfill its statutory obligations, including setting and regularly updating the federal poverty guidelines, contradict congressional intent,” Scott wrote to RFK Jr. “I oppose the unilateral action that would disrupt the production of this crucial measure of poverty and threaten assistance for our nation’s struggling children and families.”