CCHF Thanks Trump for AHRQ Grant Cuts, Calls for Agency Shutdown

Citizens’ Council for Health Freedom’s letter to Trump traces AHRQ from controversial Clinton-era guidelines to today’s computerized treatment protocols.

ST PAUL, MN, UNITED STATES, August 4, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ -- Citizens’ Council for Health Freedom (CCHF) sent a letter Monday to President Donald J. Trump thanking his administration for cutting grant funding through the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) and asking him to call on Congress to shut down the agency.

“President Trump is doing what Republicans should have finished in 1995,” said Twila Brase, RN, PHN, CCHF President and Co-Founder. “After Republicans put AHRQ on a hit list for elimination, the agency backed off from its plans to explicitly direct the practice of medicine, but its continued focus on imposing quality metrics through government-issued treatment protocols achieves the same purpose, and its controversial legacy treatment protocols are still on its website.”

Congress created AHRQ’s predecessor, the Agency for Health Care Policy and Research (AHCPR), in 1989. AHCPR released 19 clinical practice guidelines between 1992 and 1996, including a low back pain guideline that led to backlash from the industry. The House Budget Committee also accused AHCPR of performing an “advocacy role” for President Bill Clinton’s failed health care plan and recommended eliminating the agency’s funding in 1995. Congress narrowly preserved the agency and renamed it the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality in 1999.

AHRQ notified researchers on July 15 that the agency would not issue the next annual installments of certain multi-year grants. At least 104 grants were affected. KFF Health News reported that AHRQ halted approximately $100 million in grant commitments this year, based on an AcademyHealth tabulation.

“Republicans correctly targeted this agency in 1995, but they left it in law, allowing AHRQ to again influence the decisions of doctors,” Brase said. “In 2018, the National Guideline Clearinghouse website was stripped of funding. In 2023, AHRQ announced funding to create a ‘reimagined’ National Guideline Clearinghouse. President Trump should eliminate all clearinghouse funding and shut down the AHRQ website entirely.”

CCHF’s letter, which includes a link detailing the agency’s controversial history, asks President Trump to call on Congress to repeal Title 42, Section 299 of the United States Code, the federal law authorizing AHRQ.

“President Trump can restrain AHRQ within the limits of executive authority, but only Congress can eliminate it entirely,” Brase said. “For the protection of patients and medical ethics, Congress must pull it out, root and branch.”

Read CCHF’s August 3 letter to President Trump [HERE].

Media inquiries and interview requests for Twila Brase should be directed to Alexandra de Scheel at media@cchfreedom.org.

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About Citizens’ Council for Health Freedom: Since 1998, CCHF has existed to protect patient and doctor freedom. As a national, independent, non-partisan, non-profit health freedom organization, CCHF maintains a patient-centered, privacy-focused, free-market perspective. For more information, visit: www.cchfreedom.org.

Alexandra de Scheel
Citizens' Council for Health Freedom
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