Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. says he has grand plans for his second year in office to improve healthcare affordability, food safety, and more in 2026.
Kennedy spoke at a Heritage Foundation event on Monday, celebrating one year of the Make America Healthy Again agenda in action since he was confirmed in mid-February 2025.
The HHS secretary spoke with Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts about a variety of policies, from the new Dietary Guidelines for Americans food recommendations to lowering prescription drug costs.
Kennedy praised President Donald Trump as “probably the most business-friendly president we’ve had,” which he said has been instrumental in gaining industry support to achieve several of the MAHA movement’s chief goals.
Kennedy said it is a “joy to work for [Trump] because he lets me do stuff I don’t think anyone else would let me do.”
Here’s what to watch for in the second year of MAHA.
Healthcare affordability and transparency
Kennedy said the Trump administration this year is “focusing a lot this year on affordability and on transparency.”
The HHS secretary praised the administration’s work so far on lowering healthcare costs, chiefly through its “most favored nation” drug pricing policy, using the threat of tariffs to negotiate with pharmaceutical companies to lower their U.S. prices to match those of other developed countries.
Kennedy also said the administration will continue to reform prior authorization for insurance. More than 80% of people are covered by insurance companies that have already pledged to phase out their prior authorization requirements, which often stand in the way of patients receiving timely care.
This year, Kennedy said, his department is working on requiring health technology companies to give patients access to their medical records and information on their cellphones.
“This is going to dramatically change, again, the medical experience,” Kennedy said. “If you live in New Jersey, you get hit by a car in Portland, Oregon, you’re not going to have to spend the first hour at the hospital filling out a clipboard. You can go in there and the doctor will have your medical records on your cellphone.”
Kennedy also said his department will continue to increase enforcement of new rulemaking following Trump’s first-term price transparency legislation, requiring every hospital to list its prices for common services. This, in theory, will lower prices through market competition as patients shop for the best deals.
“These systemic changes are ultimately going to, I think, very quickly, drive down the cost of healthcare in this country and provide transparency and affordability to Americans,” Kennedy said.
Autism policy ramp-up
HHS’s 2026 agenda is likely to include efforts to identify the causes of autism and other neurological conditions.
In January, Kennedy named 21 new members to the Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee, a body created in the early 2000s to streamline federal support for the autistic community. The move was widely criticized by autism advocates, as many of the appointees have espoused the theory that vaccines cause autism.
The new IACC is expected to meet sometime this spring.
Kennedy said during the Heritage event that, when he was a child, he “didn’t know anybody with autism,” despite his family’s advocacy for people with intellectual disabilities.
He then cited data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that 1 in 31 children in the United States has been diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder. He also said rates of allergies, ranging from eczema to seasonal allergies, have increased significantly as well.
“I see a whole generation as damaged that has autoimmune and neurological injuries, and all of these kids struggling with health issues, and I know that’s not what children are supposed to look like,” Kennedy said.
Ingredient safety regulation from FDA
Food reform will continue to be a top priority for Kennedy, particularly ingredient safety reform that has been a centerpiece of his MAHA food agenda.
In December 2025, the Food and Drug Administration sent a proposed rule to the White House to tighten Generally Recognized as Safe oversight, clarifying safety standards for ingredients.
Current rules allow for food manufacturers to use ingredients designated as GRAS without having undergone formal FDA testing and instead undergoing self-determined safety reviews. GRAS reform has been a key issue for Kennedy and MAHA advocates, who see GRAS as a loophole to allow unsafe ingredients into the food supply.
Hannah Anderson, director of health policy at the America First Policy Institute, said during a panel at the Heritage Foundation after Kennedy’s speech Monday that GRAS standards were initially for ingredients such as whole milk, salt, and baking soda, but have been “kind of co-opted” by food manufacturers.
“There’s a balance of course of like, you know, not going overboard on regulations, but right now it’s, it’s virtually unregulated what is going into our food because of the way that this is set up,” Anderson said.
The new proposed rule would require most substances to be submitted to the FDA to be designated as safe and would require the FDA to keep a public-facing list of GRAS ingredients. Sending the proposed rule to the White House for review is the last step before public release.
Kennedy also said the FDA is fast-tracking new vegetable dyes to color food in its effort to eliminate synthetic petroleum-based dyes from the food supply “by the end of this year.”
“We’re giving the industry options,” Kennedy said, “and we also changed the regulations so that if you have vegetable-based eyes in your food, you can call them all natural.”
New recommendations for vaccines in pregnancy
The CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices will likely change its recommendations for vaccines for pregnant women this year.
ACIP leaders said during the last meeting in December 2025 that they were establishing a working group to examine the safety of vaccines during pregnancy. In January, Kennedy appointed two new members to the panel, each of whom has expressed skepticism about giving certain pharmacological products to women during pregnancy.
Last year, Kennedy fired all prior ACIP members and replaced them with experts more skeptical of the status quo on vaccine policy.
Earlier this year, the CDC reduced the number of inoculations in the childhood vaccine schedule from 17 to 11, bringing the U.S. more in line with countries that have socialized medicine systems, such as Denmark.
RFK JR. CALLS REDUCING ULTRAPROCESSED FOODS ‘SPIRITUAL WARFARE’
The American College of Obstetrics and Gynecologists currently recommends that pregnant women receive vaccines against the flu; tetanus, diphtheria, and pertussis; COVID-19; and respiratory syncytial virus to confer immunity to their babies.
The ACIP’s next meeting is currently scheduled for Feb. 25-27.
