President-elect Trump said Tuesday he is nominating television personality and doctor Mehmet Oz to serve as the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) administrator.
Oz unsuccessfully ran for Senate in Pennsylvania in 2022 with Trump’s endorsement and has been a Trump ally ever since.
The CMS administrator is a Senate-confirmed position.
“There may be no Physician more qualified and capable than Dr. Oz to Make America Healthy Again,” Trump said in a statement, referring to the slogan pioneered by Robert F. Kennedy Jr, the famous anti-vaccine activist he tapped to lead the Department of Health and Human Services.
“Dr. Oz will be a leader in incentivizing Disease Prevention, so we get the best results in the World for every dollar we spend on Healthcare in our Great Country,” Trump said. “He will also cut waste and fraud within our Country’s most expensive Government Agency, which is a third of our Nation’s Healthcare spend, and a quarter of our entire National Budget.”
Like Kennedy, Oz has no experience running a massive bureaucracy. CMS operates Medicare, Medicaid, the Children’s Health Insurance Program and the federal Healthcare.gov ObamaCare exchange.
Between all four programs, CMS oversees health coverage for more than 150 million people.
Oz rose to prominence as a guest on Oprah Winfrey’s talk show, before launching his own program in 2009. Trump appeared on the show during his 2016 campaign to reveal the results of his physical exam.
Oz has come under fire from other medical professionals for pushing unproven medical treatments and diets. Notably, he faced criticism in 2020 for promoting the anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine to treat COVID-19.
Updated at 5:09 p.m.