Health RIFs under fire
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Driving The Day
NEW FILING ON FIRINGS — Fired HHS employees allege in a new lawsuit that DOGE used personnel records that were 'hopelessly error-ridden' and contained 'systemic inaccuracies' when deciding who to let go amid the agency's mass reorganization, POLITICO's Daniel Barnes and Lauren Gardner report.
Those errors included incorrect performance ratings, job locations and job descriptions, according to the lawsuit filed in Washington federal court Tuesday by seven terminated employees.
HHS has previously blamed the incorrect data on the agency's 'multiple, siloed HR division.' Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has acknowledged mistakes were made during the cuts and that some employees will be reinstated.
'It is, of course, little solace to these plaintiffs that they were fired because of 'siloed' recordkeeping,' lawyers Clayton Bailey and Jessica Samuels write in the lawsuit. 'Nor is it any comfort to know that many of them had been fired by 'mistake.' For these plaintiffs, HHS's intentional failure to maintain complete and accurate records before making life-changing employment decisions was a clear violation of the law.'
HHS declined to comment.
Why it matters: The new lawsuit comes as questions remain over President Donald Trump's ability to order widespread cuts at multiple government agencies. HHS has paused action on the reduction in force amid separate litigation.
POLITICO previously detailed some errors HHS employees saw in their RIF notices, mistakes that could affect terminated employees' ability to receive appropriate compensation for their years of federal service and to access stopgap health care.
Key context: The lawsuit also claims that the HHS layoffs were driven by a 'deep-seated animus toward federal workers.'
'Politics aside, this is no way to treat civil servants who have dedicated their careers to public health and safety,' Samuels said in a news release. 'These employees are entitled to some basic level of respect and fairness, just like anyone else.'
The plaintiffs seek unspecified monetary damages for all HHS employees who were terminated on April 1 and whose RIF notice contained incorrect information. The exact number of terminated employees that would fall into that class isn't immediately clear, but the lawsuit estimates it to be most of the 10,000 employees subject to the April 1 RIF.
WELCOME TO WEDNESDAY PULSE. Senate Republicans plan to meet today to talk through their plans and priorities for the 'big, beautiful' bill. Send your tips, scoops and feedback to khooper@politico.com, and follow along @Kelhoops.
Abortion
STRIPPING EMERGENCY GUIDANCE — The Trump administration rescinded on Tuesday Biden-era guidance that assured health care providers are protected by a federal law when performing abortions in emergency cases, regardless of state bans on the procedure.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services announced the change, saying the guidance — issued in July 2022 — doesn't reflect the policy of the Trump administration. The agency said it would continue to enforce the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act, the federal law that mandates all patients have access to care at hospital emergency departments.
'CMS will work to rectify any perceived legal confusion and instability created by the former administration's actions,' the agency said in a statement.
Why it matters: Project 2025, a set of policy positions published by conservative think tank The Heritage Foundation, encouraged the Trump administration to rescind the guidance and also called on President Donald Trump to end all the Biden administration's EMTALA investigations into hospitals that have turned pregnant patients away. In March, the Trump administration dropped a yearslong legal battle with Idaho over the right to an abortion in a medical emergency.
Abortion-rights advocates argue that ambiguous language in state bans impedes access to emergency abortion care because doctors fear their interventions might be considered abortions in violation of the state law. Since the fall of Roe v. Wade, some women have died after being unable to access legal emergency abortion care in their states.
'The Trump administration cannot simply erase four decades of law protecting patients' lives with the stroke of a pen,' Alexa Kolbi-Molinas, deputy director of the ACLU's Reproductive Freedom Project, said in a news release. 'Regardless of where they live, pregnant patients have a right to emergency abortion care that will save their health or lives.'
At the Agencies
FDA STAFF WARY — Top FDA officials are touting the agency-wide launch of a general-purpose chatbot aimed at boosting the performance of every employee — but FDA staff isn't so sure about the change, POLITICO's Ruth Reader reports.
FDA chief AI officer Jeremy Walsh and Commissioner Marty Makary are framing the new chatbot, Elsa, as the beginning of an artificial intelligence-driven transformation that will accelerate drug and device reviews.
But two current and two former agency employees told POLITICO the bot is at best an advanced search engine and prone to mistakes. It's a long way from speeding up drug and device reviews, they said.
'We have no evidence that it actually shortens anything. We have no evidence that it does any of the things that they say it does,' one of the two current staffers granted anonymity to discuss sensitive internal matters told POLITICO.
Background: Elsa is based on a general-use chatbot that was originally developed by the agency's Center for Drug Evaluation and Research. The bot was designed to help staff draft emails, brainstorm ideas and quickly summarize articles. HHS spokesperson Andrew Nixon told POLITICO that synthesizing and summarizing data will cut down on the time it takes to review the devices and drugs that need FDA approval.
The agency plan to roll out the tool across the agency over a week in April was disrupted when the Trump administration downsized the FDA and laid off top tech staff, then brought in personnel to lead AI efforts, according to the current and former staff members with knowledge of the plans.
The FDA staffers said Trump's new hires have tried to seize on the agency's preexisting efforts to test AI tools by putting all of them into Elsa.
In Congress
SUPPORT ACT VOTE — The House faces a contentious vote Wednesday to reauthorize landmark anti-opioid legislation, with many Democrats planning to oppose a bill even though they agree with what's in it, POLITICO's Carmen Paun reports. The SUPPORT Act would renew billions in funding to fight opioid abuse, especially synthetic fentanyl, which claims tens of thousands of American lives annually.
The House passed the original SUPPORT Act by a vote of 393-8 in 2018 before President Donald Trump signed it into law. The law expired nearly two years ago, during Joe Biden's presidency, but Congress has continued to provide funding for its programs.
Democrats who plan to vote no say it's because they oppose the Trump administration's funding cuts for substance use disorder and mental health and its plan to reorganize the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.
Republicans likely will support it unanimously, or nearly so, and the bill is likely to pass. Rep. Brett Guthrie (R-Ky.), the bill's sponsor and chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, says SAMHSA staff cuts haven't affected SUPPORT Act programs, and he'll fight for the programs' continuation. A spokesperson for Guthrie did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Why it matters: The Democrats' reluctance to support legislation they agree with shows how much the cuts by the Trump administration's Department of Government Efficiency, led until recently by Elon Musk, are hindering Congress from advancing bipartisan health care policy.
If the House passes the bill, it moves to the Senate, where the health panel hasn't yet considered it, though Guthrie said Tuesday, '[T]he Senate is ready to act.
MUSK SPEAKS OUT — Elon Musk ruffled some Republican feathers on Tuesday, taking to his social platform X to torch the GOP's 'big, beautiful bill.'
The former head of President Donald Trump's DOGE slammed the reconciliation package as a 'disgusting abomination.'
'I'm sorry, but I just can't stand it anymore,' Musk wrote. 'This massive, outrageous, pork-filled Congressional spending bill is a disgusting abomination. Shame on those who voted for it: you know you did wrong. You know it.'
House Speaker Mike Johnson said Musk was 'terribly wrong.'
'With all due respect, my friend Elon is terribly wrong about the 'one big, beautiful bill,'' Johnson told reporters.
Johnson said he spoke over the phone with the former DOGE chief for what he described as a friendly conversation of more than 20 minutes Monday about the 'virtues' of the bill. 'And he seemed to understand that,' Johnson added.
Names in the News
Lexi Branson has returned to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce as vice president for health policy. Before Branson's most recent role as deputy vice president of advocacy and strategic alliances at PhRMA, she spent nearly six years at the U.S. Chamber.
Marni Gootzit has joined Medicaid Health Plans of America as vice president of communications. She previously served as senior public relations strategist at marketing for Change Co.
WHAT WE'RE READING
STAT's Simar Bajaj reports on how countries worldwide might adapt to the Trump administration's drastic cuts to HIV/AIDS funding.
POLITICO's Josh Gerstein and Kyle Cheney report on a federal judge ordering the Trump administration to maintain gender-affirming care for transgender inmates.
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