Trump Budget Proposes 40% NIH Cut, 50% CDC Reduction; Eliminates Health Equity Requirements

Key Points

• NIH faces approximately 40% funding cut under proposed budget
• CDC would lose roughly half its funding under the proposal
• New Administration for a Healthy America would receive $14 billion
• ARPA-H tasked with measuring and removing microplastics from the human body
• CMS eliminated health-equity metrics requirement for Medicare Advantage plans

Full Details

The Trump administration's fiscal year 2026 budget proposal includes dramatic funding cuts to major federal health agencies. The National Institutes of Health would face roughly a 40 percent reduction in funding, while the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention would lose about half its funding. The proposal requests $14 billion in discretionary funding for a new agency called the Administration for a Healthy America. The Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health would target projects measuring and removing microplastics from the human body. Separately, the administration eliminated a Medicare Advantage and prescription-drug-plan requirement to incorporate health-equity metrics, a change defended by CMS Administrator Mehmet Oz as improving transparency and enabling faster action against hospice providers that misuse Medicare funds.