Health and Human Services

Opportunities to Realize Savings Gao ID: T-HEHS-95-57 January 12, 1995

With estimated outlays of more than $315 billion, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is the largest department in the government. GAO concludes that the Department warrants a comprehensive "scrub" of all its activities, with the goal of eliminating, reducing, or consolidating programs. GAO stresses three points. First, opportunities exist to reduce HHS' budget through greater administrative efficiencies and targeting ineffective programs. Second, through targeting, Congress could preserve funding for essential administrative functions that enable agencies to avoid unnecessary or wasteful expenditures. Third, HHS currently lacks the tools--an adequate program evaluation strategy or modern information systems--to determine whether its programs work.



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