Trump launches government reconstruction, all agencies targeted
HHS, along with other departments across the board, may have to do more with less.
OMB Mick Mulvaney briefed members of the press Tuesday about lifting the across-the-board hiring freeze that would now allow certain agencies to hire more people, while others would have to make cuts.
President Donald Trump is launching his plan to restructure the U.S. government on Wednesday, and it likely has wide-ranging effects for agencies governing healthcare.
Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney briefed members of the press Tuesday regarding the administration's plan for reforming the federal government.
The White House briefing regarding reconstruction was on the record, but off camera.
"Here's what's getting ready to happen," Mulvaney said.
He told the press the across-the-board hiring freeze that was put in place on day one would now be replaced with "a smarter plan, a more strategic plan, a more surgical plan."
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He said certain agencies would end up hiring more people, while others would have to make cuts – in some cases even more than during the hiring freeze.
"It's something we said we were going to do on day one, and we're following through well within the end of the 100-day period," Mulvaney said.
It appears that the Trump administration decided to pull the trigger on the plan after meeting with Trump's Strategic and Policy Forum on Tuesday.
The advisory group, led by Stephen A. Schwarzman, chairman and CEO of the Blackstone Group, includes Cleveland Clinic CEO Toby Cosgrove, MD, the sole member representing the healthcare sector on the panel.
"We met this morning with CEOs from all across the nation and said, look, we're trying to do something that's never been done, we're trying to rebuild the executive branch of government, give us some ideas," Mulvaney said. "By the way, they did."
One of the ideas, he said, was "why don't you restructure the government in terms of the functions that it performs? Instead of following some organically created guidelines over the course of the last two centuries or instead of following the 12 appropriations committees on the Hill, go and look at the functions."
While there are many efforts to make government better, Mulvaney said, "this is something that goes much deeper and to the very structure of government. This is trying to do something that has never been done before. The executive branch of government has never been rebuilt. It has grown organically over the course of the last 240 years, and the President of the United States has asked all of us in the executive branch to start from scratch, a literal blank piece of paper and say, if you're going to rebuild the executive branch, what would it look like."
Asked by a reporter which agencies would likely be cut, and which were likely to grow under the administration's plan, Mulvaney gave two examples.
"I'll give you one of each, which is I think everybody acknowledges, given the proposed reductions to the Environmental Protection Agency in the budget, they would have to reduce the size of their workforce, and it's up to them to sort of come up with ideas on how to do that and effectively put the President's priorities into play," he said.
"At the other end of spectrum, clearly you would expect the DOD and probably the Veterans Administration to get larger."
HHS Secretary Tom Price, speaking at the National Advisory Committee on Rural Health and Human Services on Tuesday was quoted as saying, "I think we can probably do more than we've done in the past with either the same resources or less."
Meanwhile the Office of the National Coordinator for Healthcare Information Technology, which is under the umbrella of HHS, has yet to formally name its new chief. Donald Rucker was briefly listed in the HHS directory and in currently listed in the ONC directory as national coordinator, officials at ONC and HHS have declined to comment since March 31.
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