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Trump appoints Dr. Mehmet Oz as Medicare, Medicaid chief
By Airielle Lowe and John Tozzi
Trump selected celebrity doctor Mehmet Oz to lead the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which administers $1.7 trillion in federal expenditures and insures over one-third of Americans.
“America is undergoing a Healthcare Crisis, and there may be no Physician more qualified and gifted than Dr. Oz to Make America Healthy Again,” Trump said Tuesday. Dr. Oz and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will fight the illness industrial complex and its dreadful chronic diseases.
The surprising appointment, like Kennedy last week, shows Trump wants outsiders with distinctive resumes to overhaul health organizations. Oz, a surgeon without government experience, became “America’s doctor” on Oprah Winfrey’s top-rated daytime show.
The selection “falls within the ‘burn it all down’” ethos Trump is tapping for health authorities, Piper Sandler pharmaceutical analyst David Amsellem wrote in an email.
Physician Senator Bill Cassidy, who will chair the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee that will consider the nomination in the new Congress, posted on X in support.
“It has been almost a decade since a physician has managed CMS, and I look forward to discussing his priorities,” Cassidy wrote.
Oz will oversee health-care policy, including federal insurance programs for millions of aging and poor Americans, if approved as CMS administrator.
Medicare covers 67 million seniors and handicapped Americans, while Medicaid covers 80 million low-income Americans.
UnitedHealth Group Inc., Elevance Health Inc., and HCA Healthcare Inc., which depend on government health programs, are concerned after the pick.
Oz’s 2020 Forbes column proposes a 20% payroll tax to expand commercial Medicare Advantage plans to replace employer-provided health insurance.
After US markets closed, UnitedHealth and Humana Inc. shares rose slightly.
Most public short lists of Trump’s agency leader candidates did not include Oz. Health funding and policy, CMS’s mainstays, are not his specialty.
Oz heading the staid agency would increase its profile but reject conservative health policy professionals who understand its complex principles.
Trump’s Nomination of Dr. Mehmet Oz Raises Concerns Over Health Policies
“This nomination process is like a carnival,” Spencer Perlman, an analyst with researcher Veda Partners, said in an email. She said Trump has been picking leaders who are good at connecting with voters, and Oz’s media experience would help.
Jared Holz of Mizuho said Oz “understands the market both as a doctor and product developer,” but the pick is “a little bit outside the scope most investors were probably expecting.”
He could affect reproductive health care policies if confirmed at CMS. Example: The Biden administration has endeavored to explain that federal emergency care standards for hospitals supersede state abortion bans.
Oz supported state and local abortion regulation during his 2022 Senate bid.
He debated Fetterman and argued, “There should not be interference from the federal government.”
It controls the Affordable Care Act exchanges, or Obamacare markets, which Trump tried to overturn in his first term.
Trump has always intended to repeal ACA.
Trump Appoints Dr. Mehmet Oz as Medicare, Medicaid Chief Despite Criticism
When Trump was president, Republicans failed to repeal the legislation.
Long linked with NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, Oz has advocated for alternative and unconventional treatments. He is criticized for pushing untested supplements and vitamins.
Medical professionals accused Oz of “promoting bogus treatments” tried to get him fired from Columbia University in 2015. During his 2022 Senate campaign, the university dissolved connections.
In an X post, Georgetown University law school global health specialist Lawrence Gostin said Oz “profits from fringe medical ideas.” Oz and Kennedy’s nominations prove “Trump is delivering his middle finger to science,” he tweeted.
