A KFF poll shows that Americans’ trust in the healthcare system dropped during RFK Jr.’s first year as health secretary. There is a crisis in the RFK Jr. healthcare trust, a drop in the American public’s confidence in public health, the failure of Trump’s MAHA initiative, and a backlash against RFK Jr.’s vaccine policy. Trust in US health agencies drops to 2026.
A year after President Donald Trump named Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as Health Secretary on February 13, 2025, people of all political stripes have lost a lot of faith in U.S. government health agencies. A KFF poll shows that trust in HHS agencies like the CDC is dropping quickly, and experts say it will get worse because of controversial changes. These results are very different from Trump’s promise that RFK Jr. would “restore faith in American health care.”
- Since mid-2023, trust in the CDC, FDA, and NIH has dropped a lot, and Democrats have seen the biggest drop since Trump took office.
- Only 39% of Americans trust what RFK Jr. says, while 86% trust their own doctors for health advice.
- KFF data shows that almost 60% of people don’t like RFK Jr.’s work, even some MAHA supporters.
These changes happened at the same time as RFK Jr.’s actions, such as changes to the CDC website that went against the consensus on vaccines and autism and new guidelines for childhood vaccinations.
RFK Jr. has pushed the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) agenda, which includes new rules about what to eat, more openness from government agencies, and changes to vaccine policy. Supporters like Kevin Roberts from the Heritage Foundation call these “victories,” pointing to Trump’s “most favored nation” deals that promote healthier eating and lower drug costs. But critics, including former leaders of the CDC, say that actions like firing vaccine advisors and questioning hepatitis B shots for babies go against science that is based on facts.
With the most measles cases in the U.S. in decades, medical groups have asked courts to stop some changes to vaccine policies.
As the midterm elections get closer, the White House is focusing on health wins like reorganizing leadership to give HHS more control. But the Annenberg and KFF polls show that trust is going down on both sides, and RFK Jr.’s skepticism about vaccines makes people angry during outbreaks. Doctors are still the most trusted source, which shows that there is a gap between what the government says and what the people believe.
