Washington — President-elect Donald Trump introduced Tuesday that he has chosen Dr. Mehmet Oz — a star coronary heart surgeon who hosted a daytime tv present — to steer the Facilities for Medicare and Medicaid Providers.
The company falls underneath the Division of Well being and Human Providers and oversees Medicare, the federal portion of the Medicaid program, the Youngsters’s Well being Insurance coverage Program and the federal medical health insurance market. Trump has chosen Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for secretary of Well being and Human Providers. Each positions require Senate affirmation.
“America is dealing with a well being care disaster, and there could also be no doctor extra certified and succesful than Dr. Oz to make America wholesome once more,” Trump mentioned in a press release. “He’s an eminent doctor, coronary heart surgeon, inventor, and world-class communicator, who has been on the forefront of wholesome residing for many years.”
The president-elect mentioned Oz will work with Kennedy, if he’s confirmed, “to tackle the sickness industrial advanced, and all of the horrible power ailments left in its wake.” He additionally indicated there could also be cuts to CMS, writing that Oz “may even lower waste and fraud inside our nation’s costliest authorities company, which is a 3rd of our nation’s healthcare spend, and 1 / 4 of our complete nationwide price range.”
Greater than 100 million Individuals take part within the main applications that CMS oversees — Medicare, Medicaid and CHIP — based on the company.
Oz was defeated by Democratic Sen. John Fetterman within the 2022 Senate race in Pennsylvania after receiving Trump’s endorsement. Years earlier than mounting his Senate run, he got here underneath scrutiny by Congress for that includes on his present unproven “miracle” weight-loss dietary supplements. Throughout a Senate committee listening to in June 2014, lawmakers accused Oz of deceptive customers about a kind of dietary supplements, a inexperienced espresso bean extract that he promoted on his eponymous daytime tv present.
Oz rose to fame for his appearances on Oprah Winfrey’s present, and his personal weekday program ran from 2009 to 2022, when he launched his Senate marketing campaign.
