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President-elect Donald Trump has nominated television personality Dr. Mehmet Oz to be the administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
Oz is a physician, professor emeritus of cardiothoracic surgery at Columbia University and hosted the daytime talk show “The Dr. Oz Show” from 2009 to 2022. The show featured segments on health, wellness and occasionally true crime, and it was co-produced by Oprah Winfrey’s Harpo Studios. Over the years, Oz has been criticized by medical professionals for his support of pseudoscience, homeopathy and alternative medicines.
“The Dr. Oz” show ended in 2022 when Oz ran as a Republican for Pennsylvania’s Senate seat. He lost to Sen. John Fetterman. Oz’s nomination comes days after Trump tapped Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a noted vaccine skeptic, to be secretary of health and human services — and years ago, Kennedy Jr. drew criticism for questioning vaccine efficacy on “The Dr. Oz Show.”
Popular on Variety “I am very pleased to nominate Dr. Mehmet Oz to serve as the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Administrator. America is facing a Healthcare Crisis, and there may be no Physician more qualified and capable than Dr. Oz to Make America Healthy Again. He is an eminent Physician, Heart Surgeon, Inventor, and World-Class Communicator, who has been at the forefront of healthy living for decades. 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 wrote on Tuesday.
He continued: “Our broken Healthcare System harms everyday Americans, and crushes our Country’s budget. 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. 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.”
Oz won a total of nine Daytime Emmy Awards for outstanding informative talk show and host.
“I have known Dr. Oz for many years,” Trump wrote, “And I am confident he will fight to ensure everyone in America receives the best possible Healthcare, so our Country can be Great and Healthy Again!”
