President-elect Donald Trump has pledged to involve anti-vaccine activist and conspiracy theorist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to some extent in his next administration, but whoever he chooses to lead key health agencies will have a major impact on the health of the Republican Party. the agenda for the next four years.

The top positions require Senate confirmation, meaning Trump will also need Senate buy-in. The positions include secretary of Health and Human Services, who requires Senate confirmation; director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, who will require Senate confirmation starting in January 2025; commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration and director of the National Institutes of Health, which also require Senate confirmation.

Republican health care priorities will likely include increased health care transparency and lower drug costs, as well as limiting access to health care for LGBTQ people and, potentially, even further limiting access to abortion. This could look like abandoning Title X regulations, which provide federal dollars for family planning, or the Mexico City Policy, which blocks federal funding for nongovernmental organizations that provide abortion counseling or services .

It could also look like rolling back rules regarding nondiscrimination in health care, interference in drug price negotiations, or staffing mandates in nursing homes.

Here are some of the names mentioned for Trump’s future health policy roles:

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Trump reiterated his promise to bring RFK Jr. into his administration during his victory speech Tuesday, but he is unlikely to be named to lead a major agency.

“He’s going to help make America healthy again.” He’s a great guy and he really means it. He wants to do certain things, and we’re going to let him do it,” Trump told supporters at the West Palm Beach Convention Center during his victory speech Tuesday night.

In an interview on MSNBC On Wednesday morning, Kennedy announced he would eliminate entire departments at the FDA, including the nutrition department, which was recently reorganized as part of the agency’s efforts to create a human food program.

Many experts believe Kennedy will serve more as an informal adviser to Trump because it could be difficult to get a majority of senators, even in a Republican-led chamber, to confirm him.

“I see someone like that a little more in the Elon Musk kind of role…someone who is a whisperer in the ear of the administration,” said Amy Carnevale, K&L Gates government affairs advisor and former RNC delegate.

Joseph A. Ladapo

Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo plans to lead HHS, ABC News first reported.

Like Kennedy, Ladapo is a vaccine skeptic.

Under his leadership, Florida has skirted CDC pandemic guidelines regarding masks and social distancing, as well as vaccine requirements for children. In October 2022, it recommended that men aged 18 to 39 avoid mRNA COVID-19 vaccines due to a slightly increased risk of cardiac death. The study he referenced was widely criticized, and the FDA and CDC sent him a letter asking him to stop spreading misinformation.

Lapado was named for the first time by Republican Governor Ron DeSantis in 2021.

After Trump’s victory, Ladapo tweeted Wednesday that “the future of health freedom in America looked brighter.”

“Just like in Florida, it’s time to say ‘no’ to trampling on citizens’ rights, to denouncing citizens about experimental vaccines that harm instead of helping, and to muzzling doctors who disagree with orthodoxy. Light triumphs over darkness,” he said.

Roger Severino

Roger Severino, former director of the HHS Office of Civil Rights under Trump and current vice president of domestic policy at the Heritage Foundation, wrote the HHS part of Project 2025.

Severino is one of the Republican Party’s most vocal opponents of abortion. He has repeatedly said the government should not consider abortion health care and called for reversing approval of medical abortion, codifying the Hyde Amendment and removing the morning-after pill from the contraceptive mandate.

In Project 2025, it also encourages the NIH to stop promoting “junk gender science” and to redefine the definition of sex so that it does not include gender identity, among other things.

Brian Blasé

Brian Blase, former special assistant to President Trump for economic policy at the White House National Economic Council and currently president of the Paragon Health Institute, could return for a second administration.

In his latest email, Blase called Trump’s victory “an opportunity to build on the health care successes of his first term” — primarily highlighting policies that expanded the availability of health plans to short term, association health plans and price transparency.

Under the Biden administration, Blase analyzed and promoted the expansion of health savings account plans. He proposedd offer low-income exchange enrollees the option of receiving a portion of their subsidy in the form of an HSA deposit rather than a subsidy to the insurer.

He also spoke out against the Biden administration’s expansion of Medicaid during the COVID-19 public health emergency, and called for limiting the program’s reach to the lowest-income and most vulnerable.

Paul Mango

Mango, another former Trump administration official and advisor to the Paragon Institute, served as HHS deputy chief of staff from 2019 to 2021 and served as HHS Secretary Alex Azar’s official liaison to Operation Warp Speed. From 2018 to 2019, Mango served as chief of staff for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. His institutional knowledge of the department could be seen as an asset to the new Trump administration.

Eric Hargan

Eric Hargan, another Trump administration alumnus, served as deputy secretary of HHS under Trump and also as acting secretary. He also served on the board of directors for Operation Warp Speed. Hargan oversaw the establishment and launch of the Provider Relief Fund during the pandemic.

Hargan was also acting deputy secretary of HHS under then-President George W. Bush.

Today he is founder and CEO of the Hargan Group, where he focuses on healthcare, government relations and public affairs.

Joe Grogan

Joe Grogan served as Trump’s aide and director of his Domestic Policy Council. He also served as a member of the White House coronavirus task force early in the pandemic. But Grogan did not stay in the administration for the entire first term and resigned in May 2020 to join Verde Technologies.

During his time in the White House, Grogan worked closely on efforts to lower drug costs, ban surprise medical bills, and expand COVID-19 testing. He has been a vocal opponent of the Biden administration’s policies to have Medicare negotiate drug costs, saying it would lead to less pharmaceutical innovation, and has called repeatedly for reform of the FDA to speed up the drug review and approval process.

These days, Grogan also works at Paragon Health Institute, where he serves as chairman of the board.

Bobby Jindal

The former Louisiana governor is now president of the Center for a Healthy America, an arm of the America First Policy Institute, a conservative think tank that advises Trump. Jindal’s interest in health policy is not new: He served as deputy secretary of HHS under George W. Bush. In recent years he called for changes to health care exchanges, increased price transparency measures, and advocated against single-payer health care.