Donald Trump has chosen Mehmet Oz, best known for starring in his eponymous daytime talk show and who leaned heavily on Trumpism during his failed 2022 election campaign for a Senate seat in Pennsylvania, to lead the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). The cardiothoracic surgeon, who faced massive backlash from the medical and scientific community for spreading misinformation at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, will oversee the agency which operates with an annual budget of 2.6 trillion dollars and provides healthcare to more than 100 million people.
“I am honored to have been nominated by [Donald Trump] to lead CMS,” Oz posted on X on Tuesday. “I look forward to serving my country to make America healthy again under the leadership of the HHS Secretary [Robert F Kennedy Jr].”
In announcing Oz’s selection, Trump said Oz will “make America healthy again” and described him as “an eminent physician, heart surgeon, world-class inventor and communicator who has been at the forefront of healthy living for decades.” .
Oz has been on American television screens for almost twenty years, first appearing on the Oprah Winfrey show in 2004. During that time, he spoke to his audience about losing weight with fad diets and what it takes to poop healthily and combat it. end of his run, touting hydroxychloroquine as a possible cure for Covid-19.
Here’s what you need to know about the New York University professor and surgeon turned television show host who has now been appointed by Trump.
Who is Mehmet Oz?
Oz, 64, is a Turkish-American Ohio native best known for The Dr. Oz Show, which ran from 2009 to 2022. His father was a surgeon in Turkey, and after Oz graduated high school in Delaware, he was accepted into Harvard. He also served in the Turkish army to maintain dual citizenship, the Associated Press reported.
Before entering American homes through daytime television, he had more than twenty years of experience as a cardiothoracic surgeon at the Presbyterian-Columbia Medical Center in New York. He was also a professor at Columbia University Medical School.
His bona fides at prestigious institutions quickly earned him credibility among viewers, and his popularity earned him nine Daytime Emmy awards for outstanding informational talk show and host.
Although his show ended in 2022, Oz maintains a YouTube channel full of old episodes of his shows, where he interviews guests like Penn Jillette about his weight loss and Robert F Kennedy Jr. about his 2014 book on the presence of mercury in vaccines. He also has an Instagram account with more than a million followers, where Oz shares photos of his family and sells products from iHerb, an online health and wellness brand for which he is a global consultant.
Oz’s questionable medical advice and time in politics
During his TV stint, Oz dealt with the hallmarks of weight loss culture, such as detoxes, cleanses and diets that promised rapid weight loss. He also faced criticism from senators in 2014 over claims he made and alleged false advertising of supplements he promoted on his show. When the Covid-19 pandemic hit, Oz regurgitated misinformation coming from the fringes of the right and the medical community.
These comments continued as he threw his hat into the race to represent Pennsylvania in the U.S. Senate against John Fetterman in 2022. The Guardian wrote at the time:
“Oz was dogged during the campaign by questions about his actual connection to the state. Oz lived in New Jersey for decades before moving to Pennsylvania in October 2020 to a home owned by his wife’s family. Just months later, he announced his bid to become the state’s U.S. Senator.”
After Fetterman’s stroke, in which he said he “almost died,” the Oz campaign launched unsavory attacks on him, with an Oz aide, Rachel Tripp, claiming that Fetterman might not have had a stroke if he “ever had a vegetable eaten in his life.”
Oz ultimately lost to Fetterman, who received 51% of the vote, compared to Oz’s 46%.
What will Running Oz?
Oz will succeed Chiquita Brooks-LaSure, CMS’ current administrator, to lead programs including Medicare, the federal health insurance program for people age 65 or older and people with disabilities, and Medicaid, the state insurance program for people with lower incomes. , which is jointly funded by states and the federal government. The two programs provide health insurance to more than 140 million Americans.
Also in the CMS fold are the Children’s Health Insurance Program (Chip) and the Health Insurance Marketplace, which was created under Barack Obama in 2010 through the Affordable Care Act.
Trump’s economic advisers and Republicans in Congress are currently discussing possible cuts to Medicaid, food stamps and other government welfare programs to cover the costs of extending the president-elect’s billion-dollar 2017 tax cut.
