HHS employees do not believe the current "HHS bloodletting" is affecting many CCIIO employees, but they say the "reduction in force" moves have slashed staffing at the CMS Office of Acquisition and Grants Management, which oversees CMS acquisitions. Cuts have also hurt CMS minority health operations and an office that oversees coverage for people who qualify both for Medicare, a program that serves people over 65 and people with disability, and for Medicaid, a program that serves low-income people and some people who are eligible due to special state eligibility provisions.

If contract oversight job losses lead to more prior authorization and billing problems for Medicare patients, resolving those problems could reduce the amount of time doctors and hospitals have to resolve problems for patients with employer plan coverage.

Employees believe more job losses are coming.

Officials in the administration of President Donald Trump have said that the job cuts are part of efforts to make HHS more efficient and more effective by eliminating walls between HHS agencies and centralizing functions such as human resources, purchasing and information technology support.

Administration officials predicted last week that the realignment could lead to the elimination of about 20,000 of the 82,000 full-time equivalent employee positions at HHS, including job losses for about 10,000 current HHS employees and the elimination of about 300 of the 6,529 positions at CMS.

Related: HHS to cut 10K jobs, including 300 at CMS

"Our hearts go out to those who have lost their jobs," Kennedy said. "But the reality is clear: What we've been doing isn't working."

The United States is spending about $1.9 trillion per year on health care, but Americans are getting sicker, Kennedy said.

Deeper cuts: This week's realignment has had a much bigger effect on HHS public health and research programs than on CMS health insurance programs.

The cuts have led to big cuts in staffing at HHS offices that have worked to fight HIV and other infectious diseases, prevent lead poisoning in children, track air quality and encourage hospitals to screen newborn babies for hearing loss.

The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health lost most employees involved in activities other than helping federal employees who have been exposed to radiation and survivors of the 2001 attack on New York's World Trade Center complex.

One of the researchers cut was Dr. Luigi Ferrucci, scientific director of the National Institute on Aging, who may be best known for his research on factors that can cause or prevent Parkinson's disease.

Some of the operations cut may reappear in a new Administration for a Healthy America. The new agency could oversee activities related to primary care, maternal and child health, infectious disease prevention and occupational safety.

Democrats' reaction: Dozens of Democrats in the U.S. Senate signed a public letter questioning the HHS realignment.

"You claim this 'reduction in force' will 'make America healthy again,'" the senators say in the letter. "But firings of this scale will do the exact opposite. If you do not reverse course, you will do irreparable damage to our nation's human services, health care delivery, public health and scientific infrastructure — making Americans sicker and leaving our communities ill-prepared for future threats."

Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., talked about the HHS cuts during the 25-hour Senate floor speech he gave to try to protest many of the Trump administration's recent actions.

The cuts "don't surprise me," Booker said. "But they hurt me."

Booker took a question about the impact of the research cuts and said one reason is that his own father died of Parkinson's disease.

"I know the pain families are enduring," Booker said.