US Senate candidate from the Republican Party of Pennsylvania, Dr. Mehmet Oz, poses for a photo outside a polling station during the primary election in Rockledge, Pennsylvania, USA May 17, 2022.
Hannah Beier Reuters
President-elect Donald Trump said he will nominate Dr. Mehmet Oz – celebrity TV host and former US Senate candidate – is the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services administrator.
CMS operates or oversees programs that provide health coverage to approximately 1 out of every 2 Americans, including Medicare, Medicaid, the Children’s Health Insurance Program, and the Obamacare Healthcare.gov marketplace.
Those four programs account for $1.6 trillion in spending, or nearly 25% of the entire federal budget, which Trump highlighted when he announced Oz as his choice to lead the division of the Department of Health and Human Services.
Trump said last week that he would nominate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a vaccine skeptic and conspiracy theorist, as HHS secretary.
Oz previously hosted “The Dr. Oz Show,” a syndicated daytime television program for more than a dozen years. He is a Republican candidate for a US Senate seat from Pennsylvania in 2022, losing to Senator John Fetterman, a Democrat.
“America is facing a Health Care Crisis, and there may be no Doctor more qualified and capable than Dr. Oz to Make America Healthy Again,” Trump said in a statement Tuesday.
“He is a World Class Physician, Heart Surgeon, Inventor, and Communicator, who has been a leader in healthy living for decades. Dr. Oz will work with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to tackle the disease industrial complex. , and all a terrible chronic disease that still exists.
“A broken Health Care System is hurting Americans every day, and it’s hurting our Nation’s budget,” Trump said.
“Dr. Oz will be a leader in pushing Disease Prevention, so that we get the best results in the World for every dollar we spend on Health Care in our Great Country,” Trump said. “They will also eliminate waste and fraud in our Country’s most expensive Government Agency, a third of our Nation’s Health spending, and a quarter of the entire National Budget.”
Chiquita Brooks-LaSure is the current CMS administrator.
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