President-elect Donald Trump says he is nominating Mehmet Oz, MD, a heart surgeon who hosted a long-running television talk show, to lead the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS).
"Dr. Oz will be a leader in incentivizing Disease Prevention, so we get the best results in the World for every dollar we spend on Healthcare in our Great Country," Trump said in a statement on . "He will also cut waste and fraud within our Country's most expensive Government Agency, which is a third of our Nation's Healthcare spend, and a quarter of our entire National Budget."
Oz unsuccessfully ran for Senate in Pennsylvania as a Republican in 2022 and is an outspoken supporter of Trump. In recent days Oz expressed support for Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s nomination for the nation’s top health agency, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
As CMS administrator, Oz would report to Kennedy. If confirmed by the Senate, Oz would be responsible for Medicare, Medicaid, and the Affordable Care Act -- programs that more than half the country relies on for health insurance.
"Americans need better research on healthy lifestyle choices from unbiased scientists, and @robertfkennedyjr can help as HHS secretary," Oz shared in a post on Instagram last week, along with a photo of him and Kennedy together.
Trump has said he wants to the Affordable Care Act but has said he only has “concepts of a plan” for how that redesign would operate. During his first term in office, he tried unsuccessfully to scrap the program altogether. Last month, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) promised that healthcare reform would be a big part of Trump’s second term agenda.
During his campaign for senate, Oz promised to expand Medicare Advantage, the privately run version of Medicare that has become increasingly popular but also a source of .
TV personality Oprah Winfrey helped launch Oz into fandom and fortune. After years of appearing on her show as a health expert, Oz landed a talk show of his own that aired for 13 seasons. Oz has been of hawking dubious medical treatments and products on his defunct TV show. And during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, he government officials to make hydroxychloroquine widely available, despite unresolved questions about its safety and effectiveness.
Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), the chamber's president pro tempore, said Tuesday in a statement that Oz, who has described himself as "strongly pro-life," was unqualified for the position.
"Dr. Oz has zero qualifications, pushes alarming pseudoscience, & holds extreme anti-abortion views," she said in a . "CMS is a critical agency & we need serious leaders to protect Americans' health care and bring down costs -- not TV hosts whose main qualification is their loyalty to Trump."