Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the Department of Health and Human Services’ misinformation ghoul, released a video on social media Friday announcing the rollback of a Biden-era policy he called “immoral.” That rescinded requirement took access away from the 144 million people enrolled in Medicare, Medicaid, and Children’s Health Insurance Programs for COVID-19 care, including vaccinations.
“Today, I’m proud to announce we’ve eliminated that policy by repealing a dangerous Biden era provision in the [Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services] inpatient payment rule,” Kennedy said. “And we’re not stopping there. We’re scanning every corner of the health care system for hidden incentives that corrupt medical judgment.”
Kennedy also claimed, “We’ve recently uncovered that more than 36,000 doctors had their Medicare reimbursements altered based upon childhood vaccination rates. That’s not medicine. That’s coercion. It’s immoral. It has no place in a constitutional democracy or in a system that claims to protect children.”
Kennedy’s framing of the Biden-era transparency, which allowed Americans to check if health facilities were vaccinating their staff during a pandemic that killed more than 1.2 million Americans, borders on dark magic. As with his previous moves to undermine scientifically supported guidance, the HHS provided no evidence to justify this decision.
The purpose of financial incentives for vaccinations and other public health initiatives is to prevent outbreaks of avoidable diseases, like the current, historically high measles outbreak. The outbreak spans dozens of states, with over 1,300 confirmed cases (almost entirely among unvaccinated individuals) and three confirmed deaths—two of which were young children.
Kennedy’s latest anti-vaxxer screed comes on the heels of the HHS announcement that it will slash $500 million from critical research into vaccines using mRNA technology. “It is difficult to understand why these brilliant innovations should be the target of anti-science sentiment. But such a sentiment is not logical and so difficult to explain with logic,” said Prof. Andrew Pollard, the director of the Oxford Vaccine Group, speaking to The Guardian.
Every word that comes out of Kennedy’s brainwormed mouth is the definition of bad public health guidance.