Who’s On Trump’s Cabinet- Part 3: Health and Education

Elections & Politics #138 | By: Arvind Salem | Submitted December 25, 2024

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Policy Summary:

Health and Education were not what swung this election, but issues of education and healthcare still hold much sway with moderates and formed a key part of Trump’s appeal. This Brief continues the process of exploring how to hold Cabinet appointments like these accountable, using the express motivations and goals that either Trump or they themselves have set (regardless of if those goals themselves are admirable or not, although most are).

Robert F Kennedy Jr.

RFK Jr. burst onto the political scene with his run as a third party candidate in the 2024 election.  RFK Jr. strayed from his family political heritage, including his namesake, by abandoning the Democratic party and running as a third party candidate. Throughout the campaign, he began shifting further to the right, and eventually found himself endorsing Trump after dropping out.

However, more so than any of Trump’s other cabinet picks, RFK Jr. is extremely polarizing. He frequently contradicts established health authorities and peddles countless health conspiracy theories. While the public health establishment has been under fire ever since their handling of COVID-19, RFK Jr’s public health policy perspectives often find themselves outside the realm of orthodox political debate. He has spread numerous anti-vaccine theories (including that vaccines cause autism), advocated against fluoridating water (when the CDC recommends it), embraced hydroxychloroquine as a COVID-19 treatment and raw milk (both of which contradict the guidance of the FDA). He also has no public health or medical degree. This isn’t an empty exercise in credentialism, but leads to natural skepticism on what his basis is for questioning established medical consensus, especially as he will be given the power to shape public policy on many of these issues.

Many of RFK Jr’s policy positions fall within the context of railing against the existing public health establishment for making American children unhealthier and increasing the incidence of chronic diseases like autism and diabetes. If RFK Jr. can lower these chronic disease numbers, despite the unorthodox tactics he may use to do so, he would be successful. However,  if he did this by, for example, recommending less vaccinations,  lower chronic disease numbers would have to be weighed against a potential increase in infectious diseases like the flu that would presumably result if less people take vaccines).

Mehmet Oz

One of RFK Jr’s most prominent staff members is set to be Dr. Mehmet Oz. Like RFK Jr, Oz is a politically prominent figure: he was the Republican nominee for the Senate seat in Pennsylvania and eventually lost to Senator John Fetterman. Unlike RFK Jr., Oz has more of a medical background: he was a celebrity physician with a daytime show (that was discontinued when he ran for Senate and advocated for medically dubious,pseudoscientific treatments).

The crux of Dr. Oz’s proposed policies, which he outlined in 2020 for his 2022 Senate race, is to replace Medicare with a private Medicare advantage plan, essentially privatizing Medicare. However, a coalition of Democratic Senators led by Sen Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) has concerns based on his financial ties to United Health Group. Oz invested over $550,000 in the company, which stands to gain massively if Oz’s privatized Medicare plan is implemented. 

Much of Oz’ appeal comes from his promise to cut down the bureaucracy and ensure better health outcomes while being more efficient. Therefore, to measure his success, it is sufficient to examine his effect on the number of Americans covered by Medicare and the expenditures of the agency.

Linda McMahon

McMahon is a veteran of the first Trump administration- where she was head of the Small Business Administration. She is also a major donor to President Trump. Trump’s vision for the Department is largely to dismantle it and send education back to the states, and McMahon will largely be responsible for executing that vision. While there likely isn’t enough Congressional support to eliminate the Department of Education, McMahon will still have the power to, and likely will, institute programs like school vouchers and expanding access to homeschooling.

Once again, measuring success in education will be quite simple. Standardized tests like the NWEA within the United States can measure educational achievement relative to historical benchmarks. Additionally, there is already a test known as the “nation’s report card”  (The National Assessment of Educational Progress), while the PISA test can compare U.S. students to their OECD counterparts. With a well-known litany of standardized tests in the United States, measurement isn’t a problem, and looking at these tests will determine if these educational policies improve student achievement, determining if McMahon was successful as an Education Secretary.

Conclusion:

All of these picks share Trump’s vision and are being given a broad mandate to execute it. Although these issues are muli-faceted and complex, the evaluative framework given in this series of briefs represents a sound, rational measurement of determining  if these Cabinet officials succeed in accomplishing their goals. We all benefit from a healthier and more educated America, and I sincerely hope that these officials are able to make that vision into a reality.

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