The selection of controversial TV personality Mehmet Oz to run the agency overseeing Medicare and Medicaid follows Trump’s pick of RFK Jr. to run its parent department, HHS.
President-elect Donald Trump on Tuesday announced that he will appoint Mehmet Oz as the new Administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
In a statement, Trump said that “there may be no Physician more qualified and capable than Dr. Oz to Make America Healthy Again,” touting Oz’s educational professional background. After graduating from Harvard University, Oz earned joint MD and MBA degrees from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and Wharton Business School.
Oz has since served as faculty at Columbia University—though the institution quietly cut ties with him in 2022 during his ultimately unsuccessful run to represent Pennsylvania in the U.S. Senate. According to his website, Oz has also led the heart institute of the New York Presbyterian Medical Center and has more than 400 publications, book chapters and medical books, as well as several patents, under his belt.
Perhaps most notably, Oz is a TV personality, previously appearing as a featured health expert on “The Oprah Winfrey Show” before headlining his own show. “The Dr. Oz Show” drew criticism for peddling unproven remedies such as green coffee bean extract; in 2014, Oz was called before a Senate subcommittee to defend such claims. The show ended in 2022 with his Senate run.
During that Senate run, Oz proposed privatizing Medicare, Newsweek reports.
“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,” Trump wrote.
If both are confirmed, Oz will work closely with Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., whom Trump has said he will appoint as head of the Department of Health and Human Services. Kennedy, a well-known anti-vaccine campaigner, has so far not made strong public pronouncements regarding Medicare and other insurance programs.
In an investor note on Tuesday, BMO Capital Markets analyst Evan Seigerman wrote that Oz’s appointment as CMS head is “less likely to drive significant negative reactions in BioPharma than RFK Jr.,” likely because Oz “does hold a medical degree and has previously treated patients for many years.”
Still, Seigerman flagged that Oz “has had a varied track record when it comes to discussion how the US insurance system should be structured.” For instance, the TV doctor has said in some interviews that he supports insurance for everyone under 18 years old, despite being broadly against former President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act.
Oz is also an outspoken critic of pharmacy benefit managers and other industry factors that drive up drug costs. According to Seigerman, Oz in previous interviews has named PBMs and the rebate system as central culprits in increasingly expensive treatments, alongside price-fixing by pharmaceutical companies and a poor insurance coverage system.
“While Oz has been controversial and a noted TV personality, his stance on expanded Medicare coverage and tackling PBM pricing challenges could be a positive for the industry in the long run,” Seigerman added.
