TUESDAY, Nov. 19, 2024 (HealthDay News) -- President-elect Donald Trump says he will pick celebrity physician and former TV host Dr. Mehmet Oz to head the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), which oversees both health insurance programs.
More than 150 million Americans now receive health care coverage from Medicare and Medicaid. Because the agencies are so massive, they help set policy that guides the pricing of medical goods and services provided to Americans each day by doctors, hospitals and drug companies. Trump already alarmed many last week with the announcement that he would appoint anti-vaccine activist to run the giant Health and Human Services Department, of which CMS is a part.
In a statement, Trump said that Oz will “work closely with Robert Kennedy Jr. to take on the illness industrial complex, and all the horrible chronic diseases left in its wake," reported. Trump also remarked that Oz had “won nine Daytime Emmy Awards hosting ‘The Dr.
Oz Show,’ where he taught millions of Americans how to make healthier lifestyle choices.” Oz, the son of Turkish immigrants, worked as a heart surgeon before helming a hugely successful daytime talk show, focused on health and medicine, from 2009 through 2022. He went on to lose a 2022 bid to represent Pennsylvania in the Senate to Democrat John Fetterman.
Oz emerged as a conservative firebrand during and after the pandemic, railing against policies he claimed “took away our freedom." His appointment is .