President-elect Donald Trump announced on Tuesday that he is nominating Mehmet Oz, known for The Dr. Oz Show, to lead the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
Trump said Oz, who unsuccessfully ran for the U.S. Senate in Pennsylvania two years ago, will make a great addition to the team of officials who will carry out Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s “Make America Healthy Again” agenda.
Oz will work with Trump’s pick for secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services “to take on the illness industrial complex, and all the horrible chronic diseases left in its wake,” the president-elect said in a statement.
“Our broken Healthcare System harms everyday Americans, and crushes our Country’s budget,” Trump added. “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. 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.”
Within HHS, CMS operates or oversees healthcare programs that provide coverage for about one out of every two Americans. These programs include Medicare, Medicaid, the Children’s Health Insurance Program, and Obamacare’s Healthcare.gov.
The four programs together account for roughly $1.6 trillion in spending each year — almost 25 percent of the entire U.S. federal budget, as Trump said in Tuesday’s announcement.
In 2022, Oz ran for a Pennsylvania Senate seat but ultimately lost to Senator John Fetterman (D., Pa.) in a contentious election. At the time, Trump endorsed Oz during the state’s Republican Senate primary.
Oz, a cardiothoracic surgeon, hosted his daytime talk show from 2009 to 2022, discussing various health and wellness topics with experts. He also frequently provided medical advice on Oprah Winfrey’s show before launching his own production. The Dr. Oz Show ended when its titular host ran for the Senate.
Oz’s medical advice has been disputed by the British Medical Journal, which said in 2014 that half of his advice was “baseless or wrong.” In 2015, a coalition of ten doctors asked Columbia University to reconsider Oz’s faculty appointment over his controversial medical advice.
He has defended himself, saying he provides “multiple points of view” in opposition to “certain agendas which distort the facts.” He retired from his position at Columbia in 2018, subsequently becoming a professor emeritus.
The Senate must confirm Trump’s nomination of Oz before the appointment becomes official.
“I have known Dr. Oz for many years,” Trump concluded, “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!”