ACC urges RFK Jr. to make Medicare reform a priority, warns against mass layoffs
The American College of Cardiology (ACC) has sent a letter to Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the outspoken 2024 president candidate who is now the head of the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services (HHS), outlining some of the organization’s central priorities and concerns.
ACC President Cathleen Biga, MSN, signed the letter, noting that she and the rest of the group are available to Kennedy as both a resource and a collaborator.
‘Long-term reform is needed’
The first topic included in the new letter is something close to the heart of every U.S. cardiologist: the ongoing trend of Medicare cuts. The ACC and other U.S. medical societies have pushed Congress to undo the 2.8% Medicare payment reduction that went into effect at the start of 2025, but those efforts have not been successful. Biga and the rest of the group hope HHS and other agencies will step in to help make repeated Medicare payment cuts a thing of the past.
“Stagnant and declining payment for Medicare services exacerbates financial uncertainty for health systems and practices and furthers disparities in care delivery, particularly impacting rural, senior and other underserved populations,” Biga wrote. “Congress is considering legislation to address this cut in 2025, but patients’ access to care continues to be threatened. Long-term reform is needed.”
Serious concerns about layoffs and funding cuts
The ACC also shared its recommendations related to the recent waves of dismissals at government agencies such as HHS, the U.S. Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) and U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
The letter was shared online on the same day it was announced that approximately 10,000 full-time HHS employees would be let go as part of Kennedy’s efforts to reduce the size of the agency.
“The ACC has a long and successful history of partnering with and relying on staff at HHS, CMS, FDA, and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation, among others,” Biga wrote. “Like all stakeholders in the medical and scientific field, the college has taken note of the large-scale staff dismissals across agencies. The ACC expresses its hope that any reductions in the agencies that power our nation’s healthcare and scientific excellence are conducted to create efficiencies through thoughtful and targeted reassessment and redirection of resources and not merely intended to reduce the head count. The ACC urges caution to avoid harm to essential programs that ultimately advance patient care.”
Reductions in National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding were another topic the ACC wished to discuss in its letter to the newly confirmed HHS secretary.
“A large and abrupt reduction of payments from the NIH for facility and administrative costs in grantmaking is also concerning,” Biga wrote. “Reassessment of these payments could well identify opportunities for savings, but precipitous reductions without a phase-in or notice will likely mean that planned and ongoing projects will be abandoned and that researchers will lose their positions. Reconsidering this change regardless of the outcome of pending legal cases—and proceeding in a manner that achieves savings and efficiencies—can avoid immediately throttling necessary research initiatives.”
The letter also touched on several other topics, including telehealth, digital health and the ongoing rise of artificial intelligence technologies.
Click here to read the full document.
Michael has more than 18 years of experience as a professional writer and editor. He has written at length about cardiology, radiology, artificial intelligence and other key healthcare topics.