Trump picks Dr. Oz to lead Medicare and Medicaid

Diane Webber

November 19, 2024 / 2:17 pm

caption: President-elect Donald Trump (R) has picked celebrity physician Dr. Mehmet Oz (L) to lead CMS. Here they're seen together during a rally at the Arnold Palmer Regional Airport November 5, 2022 in Latrobe, Pa., when Oz was running for Senate in that state.

President-elect Donald Trump nominated celebrity physician Mehmet Oz to head the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

Trump made the announcement Tuesday on Truth Social and in a press release to reporters.

"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," Trump said in the announcement.

CMS is part of the Department of Health and Human Services, the agency that Trump picked Kennedy to lead.

The announcement notes that Oz graduated from Harvard, and earned a joint 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 TV talk show focused on health 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 denialists a platform in appearances on his show. During the pandemic, Oz boosted the anti-malarial drug hydroxychloroquine for COVID-19 without evidence.

Oz ran for Senate as a Republican in Pennsylvania in 2022, and he vented his frustrations with the health establishment on the campaign trail. Trump endorsed him but Oz lost to Sen. John Fetterman, a Democrat.

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