Health and Human Services Department

An online report drew ire from the political right, but officials say it was never part of the plan.

A federal watchdog says the government’s main health agency is failing to meet its responsibilities for leading the national response to public health emergencies including the COVID-19 pandemic, extreme weather disasters and even potential bioterrorist attacks.

Gov. Phil Murphy announced Wednesday that Paul Rodriguez, the director for the state’s Division of Consumer Affairs, will depart from his role to join the Biden-Harris Administration. Rodriguez will immediately begin serving as Deputy General Counsel to the United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) — the governmental agency that promotes the health and well-being of all in…

Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar on Wednesday said the country was still on track to have enough doses to vaccinate 20 million Americans by the end of 2020 and 50 million by the end of January 2021.

President-elect Joe Biden’s nominee for Secretary Health and Human Services delivered remarks on Tuesday. “It’s our turn to discover the breathtaking opportunities before us in the midst of this hardship and pain,” Becerra said. “It’s our turn to build up and to back up our doctors and medical professionals.”

President-elect Joe Biden has picked California Attorney General Xavier Becerra to be his health secretary.

Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar says the immediate risk of COVID-19 to Americans is low but we need to be ready for that to change quickly.

A government watchdog says it’s launching a probe of how telemarketers may be getting hold of seniors’ personal Medicare information, aided by apparent misuse of a government system

Prosecutors dropped all criminal charges Thursday against eight people in the Flint water crisis and pledged to start from scratch the investigation into one of the worst man-made environmental disasters in U.S. history. The stunning decision came more than three years — and millions of dollars — after authorities began examining the roots of the scandal that left Flint’s water...

President Donald Trump is wholly mispresenting the immigration detention policy he introduced that forced migrant children from their parents at the border. “President Obama had child separation,” Trump said Tuesday. “I’m the one that stopped it.” In fact, he stopped — or at least suspended — family separations that spiked as a result of his own “zero-tolerance” policy.

A federal judge has struck down a small-business health insurance plan widely touted by President Donald Trump, marking the second setback in a week for the administration’s health care initiatives. U.S. District Judge John D. Bates wrote in his opinion late Thursday that so-called “association health plans” were “clearly an end-run” around consumer protections required by the Obama-era Affordable Care...

Thousands of accusations of sexual abuse and harassment of migrant children in government-funded shelters were made over the past four years, including scores directed against adult staff members, according to federal data released Tuesday. The cases include allegations of inappropriate touching, staff members allegedly watching minors while they bathed and showing pornographic videos to minors. Some of the allegations included...

Former Texas congressman Beto O’Rourke shared a stage with Oprah Winfrey to talk about the migrant family separation policy enacted by the Trump administration in 2018. During a closed portion of the interview, O’Rourke said he would announce his decision about a 2020 presidential run “before the end of the month,” suggesting he was leaning toward it.

The Trump administration says it would require extraordinary effort to reunite what may be thousands of migrant children who have been separated from their parents and, even if it could, the children would likely be emotionally harmed. The administration outlined its position in a court-ordered response to a government watchdog report last month that found many more migrant children may...

Twice in less than a year, the federal government has lost track of nearly 1,500 migrant children after placing them in the homes of sponsors across the country, federal officials have acknowledged. The Health and Human Services Department recently told Senate staffers that case managers could not find 1,488 children after they made follow-up calls to check on their safety...

A congressional watchdog said the Trump administration needs to step up its management of sign-up seasons for former President Barack Obama’s health care law after mixed results last year in the throes of a failed GOP effort to repeal it. The report due out Thursday from the Government Accountability Office is likely to add to Democrats’ election-year narrative that the...

More than 50 immigrant children under age 5 will be reunited with their parents by Tuesday’s court-ordered deadline for action by Trump administration, a government attorney said Monday. The families will be released after they are reunited. That’s only about half of the 100 or so infants and toddlers covered by the order.

Federal officials lost track of nearly 1,500 migrant children last year after a government agency placed the minors in the homes of adult sponsors in communities across the country, according to testimony before a Senate subcommittee Thursday. The Health and Human Services Department has a limited budget to track the welfare of vulnerable unaccompanied minors, and realized that 1,475 children...

A federal judge on Monday ordered President Donald Trump’s administration to allow two pregnant immigrant teenagers in U.S. custody to obtain abortions. U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan said the Republican administration can’t prevent the 17-year-old girls from exercising their right to an abortion. Both girls arrived in the country as unaccompanied minors and are being held in federal shelters, though...

Ohio’s opioid crisis is stretching the state’s foster care system as more and more children are removed from the homes of their drug-addicted parents, leading to ballot requests Tuesday for more funding. Not only do more children require foster care, they increasingly have mental health problems because of trauma they’ve experienced living in chaotic, drug-filled households, children service leaders say....