Trump chooses Dr. Oz to head CMS: Shots

President-elect Donald Trump (R) has chosen renowned physician Dr. Mehmet Oz (L) to lead CMS. Here they are seen together at a rally at Arnold Palmer Regional Airport on Nov. 5, 2022, in Latrobe, Pa., as Oz ran for Senate in that state.

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

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

“Dr. Oz will work closely with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to address the industrial disease complex and all the terrible 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 Kennedy will lead if his nomination is confirmed. CMS manages the Medicare, Medicaid, and Affordable Care Act marketplaces for individual insurance policies that collectively represent health coverage for 155 million Americans.

Trump’s 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 Dr. The Oz Show.

Oz, 64, is a cardiothoracic surgeon who hosted a health-focused television talk show for a decade. He built his television career after being a frequent guest on The Oprah Winfrey Show.

Oz was criticized for giving Kennedy and other vaccine deniers a platform in appearances on his show. During the pandemic, Oz is boosting the antimalarial drug hydroxychloroquine against COVID-19 without evidence.

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

During his Senate bid, he argued that the government had “patronized and misled” the public during the COVID pandemic. “COVID-19 became an excuse for the government and elite thinkers who controlled the means of communication to suspend debate,” he said.

Oz has promoted questionable health advice to national television audiences. In 2014, he testified before the Senate after being accused of false advertising for nutritional supplements he promoted on his show. In 2015, ten doctors wrote a letter calling on Columbia University’s medical school to fire him, arguing that much of the advice on his TV show has been found to be unsupported by, and in some cases contradicted by, scientific evidence.

Oz is a global advisor for iHerb, an online retailer of dietary supplements. And he regularly recommends their products on X.

Lawrence Gostin, faculty director of the O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law at Georgetown University, wrote X that Oz is “unfit” to run CMS. “He peddles conspiracy theories about vaccines and bogus cures. He profits from fringe medical ideas. By nominating RFK Jr & Mehmet Oz, Trump is giving the middle finger to science,” Gostin wrote.

House Representative Frank Pallone, Jr., D-NJ, a ranking member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which oversees CMS, released a statement Tuesday criticizing the nomination of Oz. “The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services is a workhorse agency. It helps ensure access to health care for millions of Americans, including our nation’s seniors, our children and the poorest Americans,” he said. “Given the critical importance of this agency, I am concerned that President-elect Trump has chosen a TV celebrity with no experience or background to lead it.”

Another ranking member of the committee, U.S. Sen. Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, said in a statement that he looks forward to learning more about Oz’s vision for CMS. “Too often, patients who rely on federal government health care programs are forced to accept bureaucratic, one-size-fits-all coverage. Dr. Oz has been an advocate for giving consumers the information they need to make their own health care decisions.”

Government watchdog Accountable.US also raised alarms about Oz, noting his support of Medicare Advantage plans, which are operated by commercial insurance companies.

“Nominating someone who has promoted unproven medical treatments for personal gain, opposed the Affordable Care Act and supports the further privatization of Medicare to oversee the health care of millions of people, including seniors, will have devastating consequences,” said Tony Carrk. CEO of Accountable.US in a statement.