Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Trump’s nominee to lead the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), flubbed key questions during his confirmation hearings on Wednesday before a Senate committee weighing whether to advance his nomination to the full chamber.
During his testimony, Kennedy falsely claimed that “most Americans are not happy” with Medicaid because “the premiums are too high.” Both ends of that statement are wildly incorrect — the vast majority of recipients within the income-based program do not pay premiums at all, and Americans are broadly supportive of Medicaid.
Indeed, a KFF survey published earlier this month — easily accessible for any nominee for the HHS role — shows that 77 percent of Americans have a favorable view of Medicaid. Less than a quarter of Americans (23 percent) view the program unfavorably.
That poll also makes clear that, if anything, most Americans are dissatisfied that the program doesn’t do more. Nearly one in two Americans (46 percent) say they want the government to spend more on Medicaid, while fewer than one in five (19 percent) say it spends too much on the program.
Later in the hearing, Kennedy was asked how many children are born in the U.S. each year under financial assistance from Medicaid. Kennedy admitted that he didn’t know the number offhand, but guessed it was around 30 million — a number that is not only way off from the 1.4 million that were born under Medicaid in 2023, but also around eight times higher than the total number of U.S. births annually.
“RFK Jr. is proving at this hearing that he doesn’t even understand the basics of the program. He’s a danger to American’s [sic] health,” said Sen. Tina Smith (D-Minnesota).
Throughout the hearing, Kennedy attempted to downplay his past controversies regarding health care, specifically his false statements blasting the safety and efficacy of vaccines. Although Kennedy tried to portray himself as now being “supportive of vaccines,” Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) called him out, noting that an organization Kennedy founded is currently selling anti-vaccine merchandise on its website — including baby onesies featuring anti-vax slogans.
Kennedy’s campaign against vaccines is widely known. He has claimed at numerous points that vaccinations are unsafe, wrongly connecting them to negative health outcomes, including autism in children, a theory that has long been debunked.
Kennedy has also pushed fringe, transphobic claims about elements within drinking water, falsely claiming that they cause teenagers to experience “gender confusion.” And he has railed against the addition of fluoride to drinking water, which has been proven to be beneficial and has been the norm since the mid-1940s.
If Kennedy’s nomination to lead HHS is approved by the Senate, he would oversee a number of federal health agencies in addition to Medicaid, including Medicare, the National Institutes of Health, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and more. He would also oversee management of the Affordable Care Act, which Trump and Republicans have tried to overturn in the past.
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