President-elect Donald Trump (R) has appointed celebrity physician Dr. Mehmet Oz (L) to head CMS. Here they are seen together during a rally at the Arnold Palmer Regional Airport on Nov. 5, 2022 in Latrobe, Pa., when Oz is serving in the state Senate.
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President-elect Donald Trump has tapped celebrity physician Mehmet Oz to lead the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
Trump made the announcement Tuesday on Truth Social and in a press release for reporters.
“Dr. Oz will work with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to take on the disease industrial complex, and all the horrible chronic diseases that remain,” Trump said in the announcement.
CMS is part of the Department of Health and Human Services, the agency Kennedy will lead if the nomination is confirmed. CMS manages the Medicare, Medicaid and Affordable Care Act markets for individual insurance, along with health coverage for 155 million Americans.
Trump’s announcement noted that Oz graduated from Harvard, and earned a combined MD and MBA from the University of Pennsylvania — and that he won nine Daytime Emmys for The Dr. Oz Show.
Oz, 64, is a cardiothoracic surgeon who hosted a health-focused TV talk show for a decade. He built his TV career after being a frequent guest on The Oprah Winfrey Show.
Oz faced criticism for giving Kennedy and other vaccine deniers a platform in his appearance. During the pandemic, Oz added the anti-malarial drug hydroxychloroquine to COVID-19 without evidence.
Oz is running for Senate as a Republican in Pennsylvania in 2022, and he’s venting his frustrations with the health care establishment on the campaign trail. Trump endorsed him but Oz lost to Senator John Fetterman, a Democrat.
During his Senate bid, he insisted that the government had “protected and misled” the public during the COVID pandemic. “The COVID-19 is an excuse for the government and elite thinkers who control the means of communication to postpone the debate,” he said.
Oz has been promoting questionable health advice to a national television audience. In 2014, he testified before the Senate after being accused of false advertising for a supplement he promoted on his show. In 2015, ten doctors wrote a letter asking Columbia University’s medical school to fire him, arguing that many of the suggestions on the TV show were found to be unsupported by scientific evidence, and in some cases, contradicted.
Oz is a global advisor for iHerb, an online supplement retailer. And he regularly recommends products on X.
Lawrence Gostin, faculty director of the O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law at Georgetown University, wrote in X that Oz was “unsuitable” to run CMS. “He peddles conspiracy theories about fake vaccines & cures. He profits from fringe medical ideas. By nominating RFK Jr & Mehmet Oz, Trump is giving the middle finger to science,” Gostin wrote.
House Representative Frank Pallone, Jr., D-NJ, the ranking member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which oversees CMS, issued a statement Tuesday criticizing Oz’s nomination. “The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services is a workhorse agency. It helps ensure access to health care for millions of Americans, including our nation’s seniors, our children, and the poorest Americans,” he said. “Given the importance of this agency, I am concerned that President-elect Trump is choosing a TV celebrity with no experience or background to lead it.”
Another ranking committee member, U.S. Sen. Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, said in a statement that he looks forward to learning about Oz’s vision for CMS. “Far too far, patients who rely on federal government health care programs are forced to accept bureaucratic, one-size-fits-all coverage. Dr.”
Government watchdog Akuntabel.US also raised the alarm about Oz, noting its support for Medicare Advantage plans, which are run by commercial insurance companies.
“The nomination of someone who has promoted unproven medical treatments for personal gain, opposed the Affordable Care Act, and supported further privatization of Medicare to oversee health care for millions of people, including seniors, will have devastating consequences,” said Tony Carrk, director Accountable.US executives in a statement.
