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The White House just proposed the biggest HHS cut in recent memory.
$15.8 billion slashed from HHS in the FY 2027 budget proposal released April 3rd.
That’s a 12.5% reduction from current funding levels.
Here’s what healthcare leaders need to know:
NIH loses $5 billion. The National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities? Gone entirely. Labeled as “replete with DEI expenditures” in budget documents.
The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) gets gutted by $129 million, deemed “wasteful or duplicative.” They’ve already lost over 50% of their staff since September.
Meanwhile, HHS staffing drops to 70% of pre-COVID levels, supposedly saving $3.1 billion annually through “centralized administration.”
But wait, there’s more.
The budget proposes creating an entirely new agency: the Administration for a Healthy America (AHA). It would consolidate primary care, maternal health, mental health, substance use, and chronic disease prevention with $14 billion in discretionary funding.
Sound familiar? This exact reorganization failed to pass last year.
The timing couldn’t be worse. Public health metrics are deteriorating. Healthcare workforce shortages persist. And we’re cutting the very research infrastructure that drives medical innovation?
💡 Here’s what’s actually happening:
This is a values statement disguised as a budget. Defense spending increases while healthcare gets cut. Research on health disparities gets eliminated while health inequities widen.
The silver lining? Congress rarely approves presidential budget requests as written. Last year’s FY 2026 budget asked for less, Congress gave HHS $116.8 billion anyway.
But the message is clear: Healthcare isn’t the priority it once was.
For healthcare executives, this signals potential downstream impacts on grant funding, research partnerships, and federal program support. Start planning contingencies now.
The question isn’t whether these cuts will happen exactly as proposed.
It’s what this signals about healthcare’s place in national priorities.
♻️ Repost if healthcare deserves investment, not cuts.
👉 Follow me, Jonathan Govette, for daily, real-time updates on healthcare technology and business news. LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonathangovette/
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Author:
CEO/Co-Founder @ Oatmeal Health | AI Lung Cancer Screening | Almost Became a Doctor | Engineer | Follow to Share What I’ve Learned Along the Way
I help patients get the care they need earlier, preventing late-stage cancer.
That’s been the throughline across three companies and almost 20 years in healthcare. At ReferralMD, we fixed broken referral networks so patients didn’t fall through the cracks. At Oatmeal Health, it’s lung cancer: building the diagnostic and screening infrastructure so the 85% of cases caught too late get caught early instead.
Today as CEO of Oatmeal Health, I lead a team embedding AI into radiology workflows to turn routine lung CT scans into reimbursable cancer risk assessments. We partner with FQHCs to reach underserved communities, and with health systems and payers to make early detection economically sustainable. Think HeartFlow or Cleerly, but for lungs.
Between companies, I advised at Techstars and Plug and Play, mentoring founders building in digital health. That experience shaped how I think about what separates companies that ship from companies that stall: distribution, reimbursement, and clinical trust, not just technology.
I’m a CancerX alumnus, a 3x healthcare founder, and someone who believes the biggest problems in cancer aren’t scientific. They’re operational.
We’re hiring mission-driven builders at Oatmeal Health. If you want to work on something that matters, reach out.
When I’m not working, I’m traveling, mentoring, and keeping up with one very energetic husky. 🐾
Substack – The Oatmeal Bite:
Millions of patients get less care because of who they are, where they live, or how they look. I’m fighting to change that. CEO @OatmealHealth, a startup built for the underserved. The Oatmeal Bite: intel for clinicians, investors, and advocates.
Jonathan Govette
CEO of Oatmeal Health
Substack:
https://oatmealhealthjonathangovette.substack.com/
