Foreign Policy: on Health Care

Barack Obama: Set up permanent epidemic monitoring/command group

In the spring of 2018, the Trump White House pushed to cut funding for Obama-era disease security programs. White House efforts included cutting the global disease-fighting operational budgets of the CDC, NSC, DHS, and HHS. The Trump administration fired the government's entire pandemic response chain of command, including the White House management infrastructure. The global health section of the CDC was so drastically cut that much of its staff was laid off.

Donald Trump: Cut budget, fired entire pandemic response chain of command

[Prior to the Trump Administration], the Obama administration set up a permanent epidemic monitoring and command group inside the White House National Security Council (NSC) and another in the Department of Homeland Security (DHS)--both of which followed the scientific and public health leads of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the diplomatic advice of the State Department.