By Daily Mail (U.S.) | Created at 2025-03-10 02:56:38 | Updated at 2025-03-10 07:49:58
5 hours ago
Donald Trump is offering 80,000 federal health workers a $25,000 incentive to leave their jobs.
As the administration seeks to purge the federal workforce, an ultimatum has been given to employees responsible for researching diseases, inspecting food and administering Medicare and Medicaid.
The workers - employed by Robert F Kennedy Jr.'s Department of Health and Human Services in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the National Institutes of Health and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) - received an email detailing the proposal.
They can begin opting in from Monday and have until 5pm on Friday to agree to the 'voluntary separation offer.'
Trump vowed to reduce the bloated bureaucracy upon his return to the White House, with billionaire Elon Musk hired to weed out wasteful spending as the head of the Department of Government Efficiency.
In January, almost the entire workforce of federal employees received a deferred resignation offer that came with eight months of pay in an initial DOGE effort to reduce spending.
Thousands of probationary employees have been fired across the board, including at HHS. The layoffs have sparked mass protests and lawsuits from disgruntled workers.
The mass buyout email went out to a 'broad population of HHS employees,' landing in their inboxes days before agency heads are due to offer plans for shrinking their workforces.
The workers, employed by Robert F Kennedy Jr.'s Department of Health and Human Services in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ( CDC ), the National Institutes of Health and the Food and Drug Administration ( FDA ), received an email detailing the proposal
Thousands of probationary employees have been fired across the board, including at HHS. The layoffs have sparked mass protests and lawsuits from disgruntled workers
HHS is one of the government's costliest federal agencies, with an annual budget of about $1.7 trillion that is mostly spent on health care for millions of people enrolled in Medicare and Medicaid.
It comes just days after Trump assured department heads that staffing decisions ultimately lay with them - not Musk.
But he said if tough decisions that need to be made aren't done so appropriately, Musk is waiting in the wings to swoop in.
'If they can cut, it's better. If they don't cut, then Elon will do the cutting,' Trump said Thursday.
That should be of no concern to RFK Jr., who has already expressed a desire to implement deep cuts to his department.
Last year, he promised to immediately clear out 600 employees at the NIH, the nation's biomedical research arm.
And after he was sworn into the portfolio, he revealed he had 'a list' of people he was wanting to remove from the office.
'I have a list in my head,' Kennedy said of potential firings at the agency.
And after he was sworn into the portfolio, he revealed he had 'a list' of people he was wanting to remove from the office
'If you've been involved in good science, you have got nothing to worry about. If you care about public health, you've got nothing to worry about.
'If you're in there working for the pharmaceutical industry, then I'd say you should move out and work for the pharmaceutical industry.'
The entire incoming class of the Epidemic Intelligence Service (EIS) were reportedly told they are no longer needed as part of 1,300 layoffs at the CDC when RFK Jr. took over.
These staff generally investigate disease outbreaks both within the United States and abroad, and are highly educated and sought-after experts with doctorates or masters degrees in their fields.
'This will destroy the EIS, which is one of the absolute crown jewels of global public health,' director of the University of Minnesota's Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy Michael Osterholm said.
Trump tapped the 70-year-old former Democrat to be the country's top health official with the mandate to 'Make America Healthy Again' after he pulled out of the Presidential race and endorsed the Republican candidate.
But Kennedy was put under the microscope for his past controversial stances on vaccinations, abortion and for promoting conspiracy theories.
He promised Americans would still be able to take as many vaccines as they wanted, but said he wanted to study them and make them safer.
HHS is one of the government's costliest federal agencies, with an annual budget of about $1.7 trillion
Donald Trump is offering 80,000 federal health workers a $25,000 incentive to leave their jobs
'If people are happy with their vaccines, they ought to be able to get them,' he said.
Kennedy also vowed to preserve American's food choices, even if they were unhealthy.
'That's what I'm saying if you want to eat a Big Mac you ought to,' he said.
He added there were ways to make fast food more healthy, by removing unhealthy additives and offering incentives for fast food companies to use beef tallow fat instead of seed oils.
'We want to do a number of things but not take away choice from people,' he said.
