Complaints about hospital food are certainly not new, and Jell-O and fruit juice are often the butt of related jokes. But the Trump administration has recently upped the ante.
It is urging the public to report hospitals and nursing homes that serve sugary drinks, nutrition shakes, or meals that it says don’t meet dietary guidelines established last year by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, with officials vowing to withhold millions of dollars in federal funding if violations occur.
The initiative from Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is spurring backlash from some doctors and medical providers who say it fails to account for patients’ unique dietary needs and is anathema to Republicans who have long embraced an anti-regulatory stance.
It’s also not clear that HHS has the regulatory authority to enforce its threat without going through a formal rulemaking process, lawyers and dietitians say.
“Most of this is political theater. HHS doesn’t have the power to do much,” said Kevin Klatt, a dietitian and research scientist who is an assistant professor at the University of Toronto. “Also, if it’s to the point that you’re trying to control people’s choices, well, you look a little fascist.”
The agency sent notices to hospitals asking them to align their food purchases with the administration’s 2025-30 dietary guidelines to ensure continued eligibility for Medicaid and Medicare payments, …