Washington – President-elect Donald Trump announced on Tuesday that he has done so selected Dr. Mehmet Oz – a famous heart surgeon who hosted a daytime television show – to lead the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
The agency falls under the Department of Health and Human Services and oversees Medicare, the federal portion of the Medicaid program, the Children’s Health Insurance Program and the federal health insurance marketplace. Trump has selected Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for Secretary of Health and Human Services. Both positions require Senate confirmation.
“America is facing a healthcare crisis, and there is perhaps no physician more qualified and capable than Dr. Oz to make America whole again,” Trump said in a statement. “He is an eminent physician, heart surgeon, inventor and world-class communicator who has been at the forefront of healthy living for decades.”
The president-elect said Oz will work with Kennedy, if confirmed, “to take on the disease industrial complex and all the terrible chronic diseases left in its wake.” He also indicated that cuts may be coming to the CMS, writing that Oz “will also reduce waste and fraud within our nation’s most expensive government agency, which represents a third of our nation’s health care spending, and a quarter of our entire national budget.”
Oz was defeated by Democratic Senator John Fetterman in the 2022 Senate race in Pennsylvania after receiving Trump’s endorsement.
This is a developing story and will be updated.
