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On Tuesday, President-elect Donald Trump announced that he will appoint Mehmet Oz, a TV personality and former Pennsylvania Senate candidate, to head the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
Trump said in a statement that Oz would collaborate with Robert F. Kennedy Jr., an anti-vaccine activist whom Trump wants to lead the Department of Health and Human Services.
“He is an eminent Physician, Heart Surgeon, Inventor, and World-Class Communicator, who has been at the forefront of healthy living for decades,” Trump said.
Oz said he was “honored” by Trump’s announcement in his own statement. “I look forward to serving my country to Make America Healthy Again under the leadership of HHS Secretary @RobertKennedyJr,” he posted on Twitter.
The former independent presidential candidate Kennedy “will help our nation address the illness industrial complex that holds our health hostage.” In an Instagram post last week, cardiothoracic surgeon Oz thanked Trump for selecting Kennedy.
Similar to Kennedy, Oz has been criticized throughout the years for spreading untrue and deceptive statements regarding science and health.
He faced criticism in 2020 for endorsing hydroxychloroquine, an anti-malarial medication, as a treatment for COVID-19. In a 2014 research,
The British Medical Journal questioned his medical advice, looking at suggestions he made in 40 randomly chosen episodes of his show from 2013.
Only 46% of the 80 suggestions were supported by case studies or other data that the researchers could find. In a 2015 interview with NBC News, Oz acknowledged that “there are segments that.
I made that I wish I could take back,” but he also stated that the purpose of his show was “not to talk about medicine” in response to criticism of some of his medical advice.
During his 2016 presidential campaign, Trump made an appearance on Oz’s television show, “The Dr. Oz Show,” to discuss the findings of his physical test.
From 2009 until his failed Senate campaign in 2022, Oz’s television program ran. John Fetterman defeated him, flipping the seat in favor of Democrats.
The Senate must confirm Oz’s request for a government position. Fetterman stated that he was amenable to Oz being appointed CMS.
Fetterman told NBC News, “I won’t automatically say, ‘F that guy,’ because he ran against me for the Senate.” “It’s about talking to someone and learning.”
Sen. Patty Murray, D-Washington, attacked Oz, pointing to his strong anti-abortion views and support of false scientific claims.
He is not capable of running a “critical agency” such as the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, she claimed.
“This pattern of Donald Trump promoting people he likes to watch on television for highly important positions in government is going to cause more chaos and negative consequences for ordinary people,” Murray said in a statement.
Republicans in the Senate were more hospitable.
After praising Oz, Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., said he was “glad” to learn that Trump intended to nominate him as CMS administrator.
“I’m excited to talk about his priorities because it’s been more than ten years since a doctor led CMS. Cassidy wrote in a post on X, “This is a great opportunity to help patients and implement conservative health reforms.”
In January, Cassidy will take over as chair of the Senate’s Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee. The panel conducts confirmation hearings for CMS administrators and other nominees.
More than 160 million people receive government-based health insurance through Medicare, Medicaid, and the Children’s Health Insurance Program,
Which covers children whose families make too much money to be eligible for Medicaid. These programs are administered by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
With every dollar we spend on healthcare in our great nation, Oz will “be a leader in incentivizing Disease Prevention, so we get the best results in the world,” Trump declared on Tuesday.
Trump continued, “He will also reduce waste and fraud in our nation’s most costly government agency, which accounts for a quarter of our total national budget and a third of our nation’s healthcare spending.”
The FDA is negotiating drug costs for the most expensive prescription medications covered by Medicare for the first time.