Senate Confirms Oz to Run Medicare, Medicaid Agency

Trump's choice is approved on a party line vote in Senate
Posted Nov 19, 2024 3:32 PM CST
Updated Apr 3, 2025 4:04 PM CDT
Trump Has a Job for Dr. Oz
Mehmet Oz visits the AW Driving School and License Testing Center in Allentown, Pennsylvania, Sept. 23, 2022.   (AP Photo/Matt Rourke, File)
UPDATE Apr 3, 2025 4:04 PM CDT

Dr. Mehmet Oz, a former heart surgeon and TV pitchman, was confirmed Thursday as administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services on a party line Senate vote of 53-45. Oz will manage health insurance programs for roughly half the country, the AP reports, with oversight of Medicare, Medicaid, and Affordable Care Act coverage. The Trump administration and Republicans in Congress are considering cutting Medicaid, which provides coverage to millions of poor and disabled Americans; Oz has not said whether he would oppose such a move.

Nov 19, 2024 3:32 PM CST

President-elect Trump has chosen another TV personality to serve in his incoming administration. In a Truth Social post Tuesday, Trump announced that he has chosen Dr. Mehmet Oz to lead the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. "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. Oz, Trump said, "will work closely with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to take on the illness industrial complex, and all the horrible chronic diseases left in its wake." The agency is part of the Department of Health and Human Services, which Trump has nominated Kennedy to lead.

Oz, who hosted The Dr. Oz Show for 13 seasons, is an outspoken Trump supporter who ran unsuccessfully for a Senate seat in Pennsylvania in 2022, the AP reports. "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. "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."

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Axios notes that while Oz's show made him a "household name," he has "no experience running a large government bureaucracy like CMS, which administers Medicare and Medicaid and conducts other services like inspecting nursing homes." (More Mehmet Oz stories.)

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