(The Center Square) – President-elect Donald Trump announced Tuesday that he picked former TV personality and heart surgeon Dr. Mehmet Oz to lead the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.
CMS is the federal agency that provides health coverage to more than 160 million Americans through Medicare, Medicaid, the Children’s Health Insurance Program, and the Health Insurance Marketplace.
“America is facing a Healthcare Crisis, and there may be no Physician more qualified and capable than Dr. Oz to Make America Healthy Again,” Trump said in a statement. “He is an eminent Physician, Heart Surgeon, Inventor, and World-Class Communicator, who has been at the forefront of healthy living for decades.”
Oz made his name on “The Oprah Winfrey Show” and later “The Dr. Oz Show,” a daily program about health and medicine. In 2022, Oz lost to Democrat John Fetterman in the Pennsylvania U.S. Senate race.
“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 said. “Our broken Healthcare System harms everyday Americans, and crushes our Country’s budget.”
Trump picked Kennedy to serve as the head of U.S. Health and Human Services. CMS is a federal agency in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
In addition to health issues, Trump said Oz will protect taxpayer dollars in the government’s most expensive federal agency.
“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.”
Medicaid and Medicare account for a sizable amount the federal government’s total annual improper payments. Improper payments are payments that either shouldn’t have been made or were made in the incorrect amount. The most recent estimate of improper payments by the federal government found 14 federal agencies made $236 billion in improper payments across 71 programs in fiscal year 2023. Over the past two decades, the government has made $2.7 trillion in improper payments, according to a U.S. Government Accountability Office report.
Most of the improper payments come from five federal programs. About 79% ($186 billion) of the government-wide total of estimated improper payments that agencies reported for fiscal year 2023 was concentrated in five program areas:
- Medicare, comprising three programs ($51 billion);
- Medicaid ($50 billion);
- the Department of Labor’s Unemployment Insurance – Federal Pandemic Unemployment Assistance ($44 billion);
- the Department of the Treasury’s Earned Income Tax Credit ($22 billion);
- the Small Business Administration’s (SBA) Paycheck Protection Program Loan Forgiveness ($19 billion).
Robert Weissman, co-president of Public Citizen, called Oz a “health care huckster” for selling products on his shows that had little health value.
“Americans need a director of Medicare and Medicaid who will operate with the utmost integrity. They need someone who will crack down on insurers who want to deny care to the sick, providers who skimp on quality health care, corporations that want to privatize Medicare, and Big Pharma profiteers and ideologues who want to slash Medicaid and refuse care to low-income people,” Weissman said. “What they do not need is a health care huckster, which unfortunately Dr. Mehmet Oz appears to have become, having spent much of his recent career hawking products of dubious medical value.”
Trump said he’s confidant about the pick.
“I have known Dr. Oz for many years, 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!”
Trump is announcing new picks for his administration daily.
So far, Trump’s choices include:
- Howard Lutnick as Secretary of Commerce.
- Sean Duffy to lead the Department of Transportation.
- Chris Wright for Department of Energy Secretary.
- Brendan Carr to lead the Federal Communications Commission.
- North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum as Secretary of the Interior.
- William Owen Scharf as Assistant to the President and White House Staff Secretary.
- Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as head of U.S. Health and Human Services
- Former Congresswoman and veteran Tulsi Gabbard as Director of National Intelligence.
- Former Congressman Doug Collins as Secretary of Veterans Affairs
- Jay Clayton as Chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
- Former congressman Matt Gaetz for Attorney General.
- Veteran and Fox News host Pete Hegseth as Secretary of Defense.
- Veteran and former New York congressman Lee Zeldin as head of the Environmental Protection Agency.
- U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., as Secretary of State.
- Former Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director Tom Homan as “border czar.”
- Former Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe as Director of the Central Intelligence Agency.
- Former Congresswoman and current governor of South Dakota, Kristi Noem as Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security.
- Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy to lead the “Department of Government Efficiency.
- William Joseph McGinley as White House Counsel.
- Steven C. Witkoff as Special Envoy to the Middle East.
- Rep. Mike Waltz, R-Fla. as national security advisor.
- Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee as ambassador to Israel.
- Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y. as ambassador to the U.N.
- Dean John Sauer as Solicitor General.
- Todd Blanche as Deputy Attorney General.
- Emil Bove as Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General.
- Dan Scavino of the Trump campaign as Assistant to the President and Deputy Chief of Staff.
- Susie Wiles, co-chair of the Trump campaign, as White House Chief of Staff.
- Stephen Miller as Assistant to the President and Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy and Homeland Security Advisor.
- James Blair of the Trump campaign as Assistant to the President and Deputy Chief of Staff for Legislative, Political and Public Affairs.
- Taylor Budowich of the Trump campaign as Assistant to the President and Deputy Chief of Staff for Communications and Personnel.
This article was originally published at www.thecentersquare.com
