RFK Jrs Vision of Every American With A Wearble w/in 4 Years

A summary of the June 24th Energy and Commerce Subcomittee on Health Hearing

All I caught was the debate on LinkedIn about this headline, but once I dug into where it came from, I found a very deep and interesting rabbit hole. There was a heated debate at the House Committee on Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Health on Tuesday (June 24, 2025). This should come as no surprise.

The focus of our substack is systemic redesign of two massive industries - food and healthcare that today are bifurcated but are in fact inextricably linked. My initial focus when scrolling through the full recording footage of the hearing was to find the clip about wearables. However, I quickly realized there was a treasure trove of insights for our readers. My objective was to try to find indications of where the administration is planning to increase their focus as opposed to debates that are ongoing. This is not meant to dismiss the gravity of those debates but to simply ensure we don’t miss where the puck might be headed (agreed or not).

Wearables For Everyone

This clip seemed to get a great deal of LinkedIn conversation going today when RFK Jr. outlined a vision of every American walking around with a wearable on their body within 4 years. This was in response to OH Congressman Troy Balderson (co-chair of the Digital Health Caucus) when he inquired about whether we need ensure accessibility and protections, 21st Century Cures Act should be able to access these innovative wellness tools.

In the testimony RFK Jr. shared that he is getting ready to launch one of the biggest advertising campaigns in HHS history to encourage American’s to use wearables. Nothing they are a way people can take control over their own health, take responsibility and see what food is doing to their glucose levels and as they eat it and they can begin to make good judgements about their diets and their physical activity and the way they live theirs lives.

We believe wearables are key to the MAHA agenda. - RFK Jr.

After this clip the dialogue about wearables continued as follows

• Data Privacy - Balderson asked “I have had questions come up when I've spoken to medical groups about wearables and the privacy. Do you have anything reassuring for that or would that be part of the announcement?”

  • RFK Jr. Response “Well, as I said, we're going to do a major advertising campaign encouraging Americans to wear wearables. I've personally had friends who've utterly changed their lives just from wearing a glucose meter. And they've lost weight, they've lost their diabetes, diagnoses, and you see this happen again and again. It really has a miraculous impact on health in our country. And it's 80 bucks a month, and we're exploring ways of making sure that those costs can be paid for. The Ozempic is costing $1,300 a month. If you can achieve the same thing with an $80 wearable, it's a lot better for the American people.”

• Remote Patient Monitoring - Balderson asked “During your time as secretary, what progress do you hope to see in terms of access to and improvement of remote patient monitoring tools.”

  • RFK Jr Response “Remote patient monitoring, you mean like AI and AI nurses?, I mean, we are working on that... It's important keeps people out of emergency rooms. It's critically important for rural health care and for people who can't travel, for elderly Americans who can't leave their homes, but they can find out what's happening to their health without going to see a doctor or to go to an urgent care or an emergency room.”

The Hearing Itself

While the transcript is not yet published here is a link to the full hearing. I generated a transcript for myself, but I don’t trust the accuracy enough to distribute it via the substack but I did utilize it to share the quotes found below. If you decide to watch the entire hearing it starts around the 22 minute mark of the video.

Highlights from Subcommittee Chairman Carter's opening statement as prepared for delivery:

“In 2023, our nation spent an estimated $4.9 trillion on health care. That’s nearly 20 percent of our Gross Domestic Product. And when it comes to per-person health care spending, the United States far surpasses every other nation in the world.

“America needs a new prescription — a clear, bold vision for the future. We can no longer afford to simply throw more money at this problem and hope for change. It is time to break from the old ways and embrace innovative, courageous ideas that will truly Make America Healthy Again.

“I am looking forward to hearing more about how HHS is working to improve health care access for American patients and reduce provider burnout by leading on necessary changes to fix the broken health insurance prior authorization process.

“I look forward to hearing additional details of the Secretary’s proposal, and to continuing the dialogue between HHS and the Energy and Commerce Committee as we begin the budget process in earnest.

“Again, I appreciate you being here today. I look forward to hearing how the proposed HHS budget will advance President Trump’s mission of Making America Healthy Again."

Highlights from the statement by RFK Jr before the hearing (link to the full statement) :

• The mission of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS or Department) is to enhance the health and well-being of the American people

• The President’s Fiscal Year (FY) 2026 Budget applies this mindset to the work of the Department, making thoughtful and strategic decisions to transform HHS and better serve the health and well-being of the American people. The budget invests in methods to address chronic disease, protect American families from environmental toxins, promote nutrition as well as food and drug safety, strengthen services for American Indians and Alaska Natives, encourage innovation in America’s healthcare future, and focus resources toward proven and effective initiatives. This budget also recognizes the fiscal challenges our country faces today, and the need to update and redirect our investments to meet the needs of a rapidly changing world.

• The FY 2026 Budget focuses on restructuring efforts to transform HHS to Make America Healthy Again. I look forward to working with you on our vision to Make America Healthy Again.

  • First - beginning in FY 2026 it could save taxpayers an estimated $1.8 billion per year through a reduction in workforce

  • Second, it will streamline the functions of the Department dropping from 28 divisions of HHS to 15 divisions including a new Administration for a Healthy America (AHA).

  • Third, the overhaul will implement our HHS goal of ending America’s epidemic of chronic illness by focusing on safe, wholesome food, clean water, and the mitigation of environmental toxins.

• The President’s Budget requests $94 billion in discretionary funding to combat chronic disease challenges.

• As part of AHA, programs related to primary care will be streamlined, and focused on needs of all Americans no matter where they may live and at what income level. The Budget and the transformation at HHS support these efforts and ensures that primary care includes prevention and addresses the root causes of chronic disease.

• Making Food Safer - I am committed to making what Americans eat safer. I am working to make sure our tax dollars support healthy foods—and we are scrutinizing the chemical additives in our food supply. Wholesome food is a key component of the MAHA agenda and FDA regulation that enables the United States to identify harmful ingredients and make the food supply safer, will be a key component to the Department’s ability to realize a healthy future

• Protecting Our National Security and Sustaining Scientific Competitiveness - Biomedical research continues to be one of our country’s biggest exports. The NIH is the largest single public funder of biomedical and behavioral research in the world. This Budget includes $27.5 billion for the NIH, a rescaling that will focus on essential research at a more practical cost and investment in security infrastructure.

Where the Puck Might be Headed…

“We wanna light a fire under biotech in this country…it’s the future of medicine…we are going to make sure the US remains the center of the biotech science try to dismantle the barriers” - RFK Jr.

• Congressman Crenshaw had a number of items:

  • Direct Primary Care - Crenshaw “will you work with us and with CMS to issue guidance or maybe launch a pilot program allowing state Medicaid programs to integrate direct primary care models into their benefit design?”

    • RFK Jr. Response “Yes, and in fact, it was a direct primary care revision in the big beautiful bill that was under the HSA provision. I believe that provision was approved by Congress.”

  • Regenerative Medicine Crenshaw “What steps might HHS take to modernize that regulatory architecture for regenerative medicine, particularly for cell and tissue therapies that don't neatly fall into existing biologic classifications?”

    • RFK Jr. Response “Yeah, absolutely. And I had another roundtable on cell and gene therapy up in and at FDA headquarters with all of the leaders in that industry. It's something Marty McCary is deeply interested in, Jay Bhattachara is. You know, we want to keep the United States the scientific hub for development of cell and gene therapy. It is the medicine of the future and we're absolutely committed to it.”

  • Psychedelics Crenshaw “What steps do you plan on taking to accelerate that domestic research, clinical trial access, and the safe deployment of these kind of therapies for trauma-related disorders?”

    • RFK Jr. Response “We are launching clinical trials now on that at FDA. I think there are 11 clinical trials at the VA going on at this point. Particularly for our service members, retired service members, it's critically important that we make sure that the science on this is solid and the preliminary results are very, very encouraging and it's something that we want to pursue. Marty McCary has told me that we don't want to wait two years to get this done. These are people who badly need some kind of therapy. Nothing else is working for them. This line of therapeutics has tremendous advantage if given in a clinical setting. And we are working very hard to make sure that that happens within 12 months.”

  • Physician Reimbursement “Will you commit to working with me and other physicians in Congress on how we can fix this erosion of reimbursement and strengthen the private practice overall?”

    • RFK Jr Response “Yeah, I mean, that's only one of the reverse incentives in our system that are contributing to the crisis in primary care. And one of the specific charges that President Trump has given me is to increase primary care access. And one of the ways that we need to do that is to make sure that primary care physicians are getting livable wages and I look forward to working with you on that.”

• PBM Reform - Rep. Harschberger asked “Is there anything in the president's budget, sir, that you know that would address the PBM industry to make prescriptions more affordable?”

  • RFK Jr. Response - “Yeah, are, that's a big concern of the presidents. The BBMs are now siphoning off about 40 % of the costs of pharmaceutical drugs. And the president wants to end that, and he's gonna do it through transparency and through a new mechanism of direct to consumer sales of pharmaceuticals that would fence out the middleman altogether. These are issues that we are...talking directly about in our negotiations with the pharmaceutical companies now under most favored nation status. It's something the president's committed to, something that we're committed to here at HHS, and we're going to get it done.”

• Sickcare vs. Healthcare - Rep. James asked “Do you have any objectives or any ideas on how to reverse the perverse incentives and some of the abuses that are happening with big companies and big government that are hurting people right now?”

  • RFK Jr. Response - “At every level of the system, there are, as you say, it's just a bundle of perverse incentives that encourage people that basically put every actor in the system, pharmaceutical companies, providers, hospitals, insurance companies, in a advantageous position if they increase the number of sick Americans and the level of our illness. And the way that we need to change that broadly is to realign the incentives that people are getting paid to actually make people better. So we want outcome-based medical care, we want value-based medical care. We're working through the CMMI to explore a number of pilot projects. I will do just that. And then we want to roll them out across the system. But we're looking for every opportunity, and I meetings all this week including with all the big insurance companies that will do exactly that. They want to do it too. They understand this is not what anybody wants.”

• Cheap Calories vs. Affordable Nutrition - Rep. James asked “another big issue in United States is we are still treating all calories equal and they should not be..Are there any plans that you can share here today to address the food deserts?”

  • RFK Jr. Response - “The first thing that we need to do is to recalibrate the dietary guidelines and we're, those are due in December. We got a 453 page document from the Biden administration that was just the product of the same kind of industry control that put Fruit Loops at the top of the food pyramid. And we're now going to give Americans a four to five page document that tells them what they should be looking for, particularly in their locality. And when we do that, it's going to drive good food. It's going to reduce the amount of processed food in our school lunch programs, in our military, in our hospitals, and other institutions. And it's going to drive good food. That's going to create markets for good food all over the country. And that's one of the ways we penetrate the food deserts. There's also programs under Medicaid to make sure that people in food deserts, on Indian reservations, in urban areas, etc., can get good food. We absolutely have to take care of the poorest of the poor. We need to make sure that folks who deserve it can have support from us. By the way, gonna be, we're gonna be, we're gonna have the dietary guidelines out at least by August, so we're gonna be months early, and I'm working with Brooke Rollins on that. And they're gonna be very good.”

• AI in Healthcare - Representative Obernolte “What can HHS do to catalyze the adoption of AI and the securing of those benefits on the provider side?

  • RFK Jr. Response “We're doing that at every level of the department …We're using it in the department for that reason. We're using it for diagnostics. We're using it for paperwork. The agreement that I made yesterday with the pharmaceutical company should cut off much more than that from paperwork from doctors. And so we are, we're using it everywhere that we can and we hope to drive it into the healthcare system in this country at every level, including the providers. Well, I think that there's no more powerful pulpit for evangelizing that than the post that you hold. And so I hope that you will help drive that because it's not enough that just HHS uses AI to increase its productivity. We need to make sure we get this adopted within industry and within the provider community. And a follow-up question on that. I've talked to stakeholders across the industry about what they're doing to use AI, using AI to improve healthcare. There is a large level of frustration with organizations like CMS, and I don't think it's intentional, I just think it's a big bureaucracy in their kind of hidebound, where someone comes up with a really revolutionary AI-based, I don't know, a diagnostic tool or a treatment option, but there just isn't accommodation in the system for it. There isn't a billing code, or there's a recognition that... that these can lead to cost savings. So, you know, obviously we want to be good stewards of taxpayer money as well, but how can we change the rules to make sure that we're saving the money that we should be saving with AI? We need people at Medicare, at Medicaid, and at CMS, leadership that is absolutely committed to this transformation. And we have that today. We have Dr. Oz, we have Chris Klomp, who came out of the tech arena and is now using his knowledge to transform what we do there. People send me every day of the week people are sending me innovative ideas that sound wonderful and we have a way to screen those now I send them over to Chris Klomp. I send them over to Clark Minor. We brought people in just to do AI and that kind of transformation and We are those ideas are being explored one at a time and the ones that work are being innovated are being introduced and integrated into our system So we're doing that today. You're gonna see major changes over the next four years.”

• Biotech - “We want to light a fire under biotech in this country. And that's exactly what we're going to do. It is the future of medicine. Stuff that is happening, the developments and innovations that are happening in that space, should be exciting to all of humanity and we're gonna make sure that the United States remains the center of the biotech revolution. China is putting huge amounts of money into this space and it's important that we do the same thing. We're going to try to take down, dismantle the barriers to biotech development and approval and to make sure that we do everything that we can to support that industry.”

A Few RFK Jr Statements of Note…

• Redistributed Funds “We won't solve this problem by throwing more money at it. We must spend smarter. We will shift funding away from bureaucracy toward direct impact. Some things at HHS will not change. We will preserve the legacy programs like Medicare and Medicaid. And as the foundation of the Maha agenda vulnerable populations, seniors and veterans deserve consistent access to care and I will make sure they receive it. Today, 83 million Americans, urban and rural, lack adequate access to primary care physicians. AHA will oversee initiatives such as prevention innovation program, which targets chronic disease and childhood obesity through access to nutrition service and physical activity and reducing dependence on medication. Third, we will equip FDA to expand its food safety efforts through research, regulation, inspection, and education. To remove harmful chemicals from food and packaging.”

• AI/Cybersecurity/Health IT “We will strengthen cybersecurity and health IT. The AI revolution has arrived and we are using this technology already at HHS to manage healthcare data more efficiently and securely and to increase the speed of drug approvals.”… “Drive AI and new technologies into the healthcare system, into our department. We're using it in every aspect of our health department. You saw my press conference yesterday with Chris Klump. He's a billionaire who's walked away from a billion dollar business in Silicon Valley to come and revolutionize AI.”

• Healthcare not sickcare “We need to realign the agency, need to recalibrate its trajectory so that it transforms our health care system from a sick care system into a health care system.”

• Food & Nutrition Research Focus “Very few of the studies that were being done by NIH were being done on chronic disease. NIH should be telling us what are seed oils doing to our children? What is corn syrup doing to our children? What are food dyes doing to our children? What is the packaging and microplastics doing to our children? What are pesticides doing to our children?

• Mitochondrial Dysfunction “Study mitochondria? Yes, sir. That's going to be mitochondrial dysfunction is the heart and soul of the chronic disease epidemic. And, you know, we now know that Alzheimer's disease, which was once thought to be have a have a number of hypotheses about its etiology. But Alzheimer's disease is now characterized in the medical literature as type 3 diabetes. Because it's recognized that mitochondrial dysfunction is not just causing disease in children, but it's also causing disease in adults. And the cause of it is clearly our food as one of the principal causes, and we are absolutely laser focus.

• Drug Price Negotiations “We're using every tool that's given to us and President Trump has ordered me to do something that no other president has, which is to establish across the board most favorite nations so that we're not paying more than Europeans are. We're in negotiations right now today with the drug companies. Over that, we're going to be able to lower drug prices during this administration more than any administration in history.”…”We have a number of sticks and we have a number of carrots. I'm happy to go into detail. Very complex negotiation. And it's gonna take not only cooperation with the drug companies, but cooperation with the European community, with Canada, with Japan, with Australia. And we're working on all that right now.”