The Senate confirmation of Robert F. Kennedy (RFK) Jr. as the 26th Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) was “a mostly party-line vote,” according to NBC News. It capped off a contentious hearing process during which Kennedy defended his positions on a range of issues, including vaccines, chronic diseases, and evidence-based science.
His confirmation is great encouragement to Katy Talento, an epidemiologist who served as President Donald Trump’s top health advisor on the White House Domestic Policy Council from 2017-2019. She now leads the Alliance of Health Care Sharing Ministries (ahcsm.org) as its executive director.
“This is the best thing to happen to health care in many years,” Talento told The Stand Radio. “He will shake up Big Food, Big Agriculture, Big Pharma, and Big Medicine with tangible policies that put patients and consumers first.”
Talento believes that the influence wielded by Kennedy will be enormous.
A protector of old
“The federal government pays for or subsidizes one-half of all health care in the country, so it’s a massive undertaking for anyone,” Talento explained.
With a combined budget equal to the eighth largest country in the world, HHS includes Medicare and Medicaid, along with all the major health-care agencies in America.
Reestablishing trust in America’s medical institutions was a key directive given to Kennedy by Trump. In a post on the social media platform X, Kennedy said he would “return those agencies to their rich tradition of gold-standard, evidence-based science.”
Talento sees this goal as a return to the original role of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in protecting consumers from corporate interests.
“They were there to protect us from them, not to protect them from us and scrutiny by us,” she clarified. “And it seems as if they’ve really lost their way.”
The deep-state challenges that Kennedy faces are evident, according to an RMG Research survey in which 42% of federal managers in Washington, D.C., said they planned to resist the Trump administration.
According to Talento, Kennedy understands these “shenanigans” and is uniquely positioned to know how the deep state operates.
An ally of faith
As head of the Alliance for Health Care Sharing Ministries, Talento is also enthusiastic about the prospects for religious liberty in health care under Kennedy’s leadership.
“He will be an ally in the diversity of choices and options in the health-care marketplace,” Talento explained, “including the choice to pursue a religious community as your solution when it comes to financing health costs. So, I feel totally confident that he’s going to be an ally for people of faith around the country.”
As the health-care establishment prepares for a Kennedy-led Department of Health and Human Services, Talento believes they should expect him to be motivated by his own family’s reputation related to health care. That reputation includes the presidential fitness standards established under President John F. Kennedy and the strong commitment to public health shown by former Senator Ted Kennedy, both of whom were RFK Jr.’s uncles.
“I think that RFK Jr. has a strong legacy to uphold when it comes to restoring trust in the public health enterprise,” Talento stated. “I hope he can do that.”
(Digital Editor's Note: This article was published first in the May 2025 print edition of The Stand. Click Here for a free six-month subscription.)
