Trump Nominates Dr. Mehmet Oz as CMS Administrator
President-elect Donald Trump has nominated physician and 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 receive health care coverage from Medicare and Medicaid. Because the agencies buying power, it sets policy that guides the pricing of medical goods and services provided to Americans each day by physicians, hospitals and drug companies.
Dr. Mehmet Oz was born in Cleveland, Ohio to Turkish immigrant parents, but was raised in Wilmington, Delaware. After graduating from Harvard University, he earned an M.D. degree from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and an M.B.A. from the Wharton School of Business.
Oz subsequently conducted his residency in general surgery and cardiothoracic surgery at Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center in New York. In 1993, he became an attending surgeon at New York– Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Medical Center. An advocate of alternative medicine, Oz began incorporating hypnosis, meditation, acupuncture, and other non-Western treatments into his practice. In 2001, he became director of the hospital’s complementary medicine program. That year he also became a professor of surgery at Columbia University.
In 2022, he ran unsuccessfully, as a Republican, against then Democratic Pennsylvania Lt. Governor, now Sen. John Fetterman to represent Pennsylvania in the U.S. Senate.
During and after the pandemic, Dr. Oz emerged as a vocal, conservative opponent against policies he believed limited one’s freedom during the Covid-19 outbreak. He was also a vocal supporter of now-discredited COVID-19 "treatments" such as hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine.
