Health Plan Weekly

Culling of CMS Staff Raises Hackles in Industry, Policy Circles

  • Feb 21
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    Feb 21, 2025

    In a move that some experts say could affect CMS’s ability to effectively regulate the health insurance markets that it oversees, Donald Trump’s administration has reportedly fired scores of staffers as part of an expansive effort to trim the federal workforce.  

    Recent reports indicate that starting on Valentine’s Day and continuing through the Presidents Day weekend, thousands of workers at HHS and its various agencies — including CMS, FDA, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and more — received notice that their employment was ending. Many of them were still in their probationary period for new employees, and some indicated they were told their firing was due to poor performance despite receiving glowing reviews. 

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    • Leslie Small

    Leslie has been working in journalism since 2009 and reporting on the health care industry since 2014. She has covered the many ups and downs of the Affordable Care Act exchanges, the failed health insurer mega-mergers, and hundreds of other storylines spanning subjects such as Medicaid managed care, Medicare Advantage, employer-sponsored insurance, and prescription drug coverage. As the managing editor of Health Plan Weekly and Radar on Drug Benefits, she writes and edits for both publications while overseeing a small team of reporters who also focus on the managed care sector. Before joining AIS Health, she was a senior editor for the e-newsletter Fierce Health Payer, and she started her career as a copy editor at multiple local newspapers. She graduated with a dual degree in journalism and political science from Penn State University.

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