President-elect Donald Trump announced Tuesday that he will nominate Dr. Mehmet Oz to serve as the next Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services administrator, a position that requires Senate confirmation.
“America is facing a Healthcare Crisis, and there may be no Physician more qualified and capable than Dr. Oz to Make America Healthy Again,” Trump said in a statement. “He is an eminent Physician, Heart Surgeon, Inventor, and World-Class Communicator, who has been at the forefront of healthy living for decades.”
CMS administers health coverage to over 160 million people through Medicare, Medicaid, the Children’s Health Insurance Program, or CHIPs, and the Obamacare Health Insurance Marketplace, making it one of the largest healthcare purchasers in the world.
According to the agency’s fiscal 2024 report, the CMS budget was approximately $1.5 trillion, about 22% of the total federal budget.
Trump called the American healthcare system “broken” and said that it “crushes our Country’s budget.”
“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,” said Trump in his press statement. “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 earned his medical degree and master’s of business administration from the University of Pennsylvania in 1986 and practiced cardiology before becoming a television personality. His television show began in 2009 and aired for 13 years.
Oz ran a campaign for Senate in Pennsylvania in 2022 and lost to Democrat John Fetterman in a contentious race, which was also one of the most costly in state history.
Trump, who endorsed Oz during the 2022 campaign, said Oz “will work closely with Robert F. Kennedy Jr.,” whom he nominated to lead the Department of Health and Human Services last week.
During his 13 years on television, beginning in 2009, Oz gained a reputation for expressing medical theories and ideas that are controversial or condemned by the public health establishment, including conversion therapy for non-heterosexual sexual orientations and alleged dangers of arsenic levels in apple juice.
Oz, like Kennedy, has endorsed the idea of spreading out childhood vaccinations rather than receiving multiple doses of different vaccines at one time during infancy.
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The president-elect said Kennedy and Oz together would “take on the illness industrial complex and all the horrible chronic diseases left in its wake.”
Oz will also likely have a significant role in the upcoming debates about the expiration of extended subsidies that lower premiums for Obamacare insurance policies that are set to expire next year.
“I have known Dr. Oz for many years, and I am confident he will fight to ensure everyone in America receives the best possible Healthcare, so our Country can be Great and Healthy Again!” Trump said.
