Trump picks Dr. Oz to oversee Medicare, Medicaid and Affordable Care Act
President-elect Donald Trump on Tuesday selected Mehmet Oz, the well-known TV physician and former Republican Senate candidate, to run the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the federal agency responsible for providing health insurance to more than 160 million Americans.
“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.
Democrats immediately panned Trump’s announcement, saying little in Oz’s background prepared him for the task of running the vast bureaucracy of CMS. But Republicans praised Oz, pointing to the cardiothoracic surgeon’s credentials, and noted he had nearly been elected to the Senate before losing narrowly to Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pennsylvania) two years ago.
Oz “seems like a qualified guy to me,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina).
If confirmed by the Senate, Oz would oversee Medicare, Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act. CMS is responsible for more than $1 trillion in annual spending, and Republicans have called for CMS to crack down on alleged waste and abuse long linked to its initiatives - an idea that Trump reiterated in his announcement, pledging that Oz would cut “waste and fraud within our Country’s most expensive Government Agency.”
The CMS director reports to the secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services. Trump has nominated Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for that role, a selection that has alarmed public health leaders worried about Kennedy’s longtime criticism of vaccines and other views.
In Trump’s first administration, CMS was targeted by Republicans who first sought to overturn the Affordable Care Act and, after that effort was stymied in 2017, later rolled back some of the Democrats’ initiatives to encourage enrollment in that law’s health programs. Trump allies and GOP lawmakers are eying changes to Medicaid, saying the safety-net program is inefficient, as they look for ways to offset potential tax cuts.
GOP lawmakers this year pressed CMS over reports of fraudulent enrollment in Affordable Care Act insurance marketplaces and alleged fraudulent billings of durable medical equipment.
Oz gained national attention for his appearances as a health expert on Oprah Winfrey’s television show before hosting his own Winfrey-backed TV show that debuted in 2009 and ran for more than a dozen years. His claims on that show, including his segments on possible weight-loss regimens and dietary supplements, were frequently panned by public health experts.
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Liz Goodwin contributed to this report.