Warnock questions RFK Jr.'s commitment to reducing health care costs in Georgia

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Robert F. Kennedy Jr. appears before Congress the week of Jan. 28, 2025, as his comments spreading misinformation drew scrutiny amid his nomination to head the U.S. Department of Human and Health Services..

Credit: PBS Newshour

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. answered questions this week from members of the U.S. Senate about his history of anti-vaccine advocacy and belief in conspiracy theories.

President Donald Trump nominated Kennedy to lead the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

If confirmed, Kennedy would oversee multiple agencies including the Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services (CMS). 

"I will be voting no on Mr. Kennedy's nomination to lead Health and Human Services," Georgia U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock said Jan. 30 during a virtual meeting with the press. "He is manifestly unqualified for the job he seeks. Moreover, he refused to commit to helping prevent spikes in health care premiums and his deeply troubling conspiracy theories about the CDC concern me greatly."

Access to health care greatly concerns Warnock, he said, bringing up the premium tax credits enacted in the American Rescue Plan and extended by the Inflation Reduction Act, that helped nearly 20 million people afford health coverage in the Affordable Care Act (ACA) marketplaces.

The credits are set to expire after 2025 and, due to the timeline necessary for insurers and regulators to update premium rates, Congress must extend the tax credits by the spring of 2025 to avoid negatively impacting marketplace enrollment.

If Congress allows the improved tax credits to expire, nearly all marketplace enrollees in every state will face significantly higher premium costs, especially Black and Latino people and families with lower incomes who experienced the greatest health coverage gains because of the improved tax credits.

He thinks that the work that the CDC is doing is dangerous to our health. I think Robert Kennedy is a hazard to our health

— Sen. Raphael Warnock

During his line of questioning on Jan. 29, Warnock asked the nominee about bureaucratic hoops that many people in Georgia have to jump through in order to access health care, which led to Kennedy admitting that people in these situations need health care as opposed to programs, like work requirements in Georgia, one of the many barriers to entry for Medicaid in the state.

Georgia has one of the highest uninsured rates and the state has some of the highest maternal mortality rates in the country.

"We need an advocate at HHS who understands that we shouldn't leave more than a half million Georgians in the health care coverage gap," he said.

• MORE: CDC, Local Docs Say Don't Put Off Routine Childhood Vaccinations Against Measles, Whooping Cough

If you follow the record, Warnock said, Kennedy has been pretty consistent with his views on the CDC and the dangers that he said the agency poses.

"He thinks that the work that the CDC is doing is dangerous to our health," Warnock said. "I think Robert Kennedy is a hazard to our health."

Preventable disease on the rise

Measles had been declared eradicated in the U.S. in 2000, but is now returning among unvaccinated people.

In Georgia, an estimated 88% of young children received at least one dose of the recommended vaccination for measles, mumps and rubella, known as the “MMR” vaccine, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics.

That coverage rate is down from 93% in 2019.

Back in 2019, 3% of kindergartners had an exemption in Georgia from at least one vaccine, which was the same overall percentage for the U.S. During the 2021-2022 school year, exemptions rose to 5%, falling to 4% during the 2022-2023 year, the most recent school year available. The national rate was 3%.

Robert Bednarczyk, an associate professor of global health and epidemiology at Emory University’s Rollins School of Public Health, focuses his research on addressing issues related to adolescent and adult vaccine hesitancy.

"I think one of the big concerns — and this is something that researchers and doctors who work with vaccines oftentimes think about — is that vaccines really, historically, have been a bit of a victim of their own success," he said. "We're sort of not used to seeing [vaccine-preventable diseases] because they have become so rare." 

Shot in the Arm — the film

Health experts gathered during the National Immunization Conference last year in Atlanta for a screening of Shot in the Arm, a documentary which explores vaccine hesitancy historically and in the context of modern times.

Filmmaker Scott Hamilton Kennedy and executive producer Neil deGrasse Tyson, an astrophysicist, participated in a panel discussion with Director of Voices for Vaccines Karen Ernst about the importance of vaccines in preventable disease.

Dr. Nancy Knight, the Global Health Task Force’s chief science and program officer, moderated the discussion.

• RELATED: Unvaccinated Family Caused Largest Measles Outbreak In Georgia Since 2000

While Tyson is not a medical expert, he said his expertise lies in reaching people who are otherwise steeped in confirmation bias, and that is why he participated in the film.

These biases come from culture, religion, social standing, belief systems, and all the things that would disrupt a person's access to objective truths as delivered by the methods and tools of science, he said.

"You don't tell someone they're wrong," Tyson said. "You find out how their brain is wired for thought."

Ernst agreed and said people just want to be seen.

"They want to know that we see them and we understand where they're coming from," Ernst said. "And that empathy is so important."

Taking the time to be curious, listening to parents' concerns about vaccination, and understanding where their information is coming from, is crucial, she said.

"I have the distinct privilege of, of working with a number of former anti-vaxxers, and they are some of the bravest people I know, because I don't know that I've ever changed my mind radically about something so important to my identity in my life. And they have, which is amazing," Ernst said.

Lecturing someone is insulting, Tyson said, noting that when an all-knowing person just hands out facts without giving the listener a chance to process it or come back with your understanding of what's going on.

The lack of communication and understanding is leading to more distrust.

The latest KFF Tracking Poll on Health Information and Trust finds that public trust in government health agencies has fallen over the past 18 months, continuing a decline that began during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Of those polled who said they trust the CDC “a great deal” or “a fair amount” to make the right recommendations on health dropped slightly from 66% in June 2023 to 61% now, while trust in the FDA and state and local public health officials each dropped by double digits (from 65% to 53% and 64% to 54%, respectively).

The Senate vote on Kennedy's confirmation is expected early next week.