Wyden, Pallone Demand the Trump Administration Restore Key Measure of Childhood Health and Well-Being

Wyden, Pallone Demand the Trump Administration Restore Key Measure of Childhood Health and Well-Being

Top Democratic Health Care Leaders: "We cannot manage what we do not measure."

Text of the Letter (PDF)

Washington, D.C. - Senate Finance Committee Ranking Member Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and House Energy & Commerce Committee Ranking Member Frank Pallone, Jr., D-N.J., demanded the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) restore the key child immunization measures that it dropped without public comment or stakeholder engagement from the Core Set of Children's Health Care Quality Measures (the Child Core Set) for Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP). This irresponsible action is particularly concerning considering Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.'s, damaging and unilateral changes to the childhood vaccine schedule.

"This decision, communicated to state health officials on December 30, represents a dangerous abdication of the agency's responsibility to monitor the quality of care provided to nearly half of our nation's children. The timing and manner of this decision display an egregious lack of transparency," wrote Wyden and Pallone to CMS Administrator Mehmet Oz.

Congress mandated that states report the Child Core Set to ensure that federal dollars go toward high-quality care and drive improvements in child health outcomes. By stripping away one of the most fundamental metrics of preventive health-immunization rates-CMS is effectively blinding itself and the public to the health care needs of tens of millions of children. This action also fails to reflect Secretary Kennedy's so-called promise of "radical transparency."

"This latest action by CMS represents yet another misguided step in Robert Kennedy, Jr.'s anti-science crusade to erode vaccine access nationwide, endangering the lives of all Americans, including young children and their families, pregnant women, older adults, and people with disabilities," the lawmakers concluded.

CMS did not provide a scientific and medical reason for replacing reliable, evidence-based measures of disease protection with ambiguous process measures about "alternative schedules," which contradict recommendations from the American Academy of Pediatrics. This decision comes as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recklessly watered down childhood vaccine recommendations, including for influenza, hepatitis A, meningococcal diseases, among other serious illnesses.

To hold the Trump administration and Secretary Kennedy accountable for their misguided anti-science crusade against vaccines, Wyden and Pallone asked CMS about what evidence it used to determine that vaccination rates are no longer a core measure of child health quality, whether legal reasons exist for modifying these preventative care standards, and whether CMS intends to measure or monitor childhood immunization rates among children with Medicaid and CHIP coverage.

Wyden and Pallone have served as congressional leaders in protecting the health and well-being of millions of Americans. In December 2025, Wyden and Pallone released a report blasting Republicans' rushed Big Ugly Bill for destabilizing U.S. health care by slashing more than $1 trillion from Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act (ACA). In September 2025, Wyden and Pallone introduced legislation that would protect free vaccines.

The letter text is available here.

###