Trump names Mehmet Oz as CMS administrator

President-elect Donald Trump is nominating celebrity doctor and television personality Mehmet Oz to lead the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

“America is facing a Healthcare Crisis, and there may be no Physician more qualified and capable than Dr. Oz to Make America Healthy Again,” Trump said in a statement Tuesday. “Dr. Oz will work closely with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to take on the illness industrial complex, and all the horrible chronic diseases left in its wake.”

The celebrity doctor ran for Senate in Pennsylvania in 2022, and with Trump’s endorsement defeated former Bridgewater Associates chief executive officer Dave McCormick in a fiercely contested Republican primary before losing to Democrat John Fetterman in the general election.

During the Covid-19 pandemic, Oz became an informal health adviser to Trump, then serving his first White House term. Oz on Fox News promoted the use of hydroxychloroquine, an anti-malaria drug, which was not approved to treat the coronavirus. The Food and Drug Administration revoked emergency use of the drug, citing “known and potential risks.”

If confirmed as head of CMS, Oz would have a central role in overseeing health-care policy, in particular the two federal insurance programs for older Americans and the poor which provide coverage to millions of people. The agency also holds responsibility for key elements of the Affordable Care Act, popularly known as Obamacare, which Trump has floated replacing.

The president-elect has long wanted to scrap the ACA but when pressed on what he would seek to adopt in its place during a debate with Vice President Kamala Harris, his general-election opponent, Trump declined to offer specifics, saying only that he had the “concepts of a plan” in mind. 

Republicans fell short of efforts to repeal major parts of the law when Trump was in previously in office.

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