Dr. Mehmet Oz

Announced as Trump’s pick for Administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services

Mehmet Oz, or “Dr. Oz,” as he is more widely known, is a celebrity doctor and television host who President-elect Donald Trump plans to nominate to be Administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). Oz has a history of providing questionable medical advice to his audience and making product and public policy recommendations without revealing how he would personally financially benefit. During his failed run for U.S. Senate in Pennsylvania in 2022, he endorsed policies like restricting abortion rights and repealing the Affordable Care Act.

As CMS Administrator, Oz will be in a position overseeing both Medicare and Medicaid, which could allow him to weaken the ACA, which Trump and his congressional allies have repeatedly sought to eliminate. Oz has been a steadfast supporter of Medicare privatization and advocated “Medicare Advantage for All.” Medicare Advantage is a type of Medicare coverage that is administered by private health insurers. A federal review of Medicare Advantage claims found that 18 percent of the payment details were for claims that should have been covered, and a recent study indicated that the rate of coverage denials in Medicare Advantage has grown over time.

Oz has a history of promoting companies in which he had investments. In one instance Oz appeared in a promotional video for the supplement TruBiotics; Oz serves on the board of and is an investor in its owner, PanTheryx. According to The Daily Beast, a number of “Oz’s platforms boosted PanTheryx products without disclosing Oz’s personal financial relationship to the company.” As CMS Administrator, Oz will likely preside over decisions about whether Medicare covers weight loss medications like Ozempic, whose parent company Novo Nordisk sponsored a “nine-minute infomercial embedded into Oz’s daytime talk show” in 2019. Oz has previously disclosed owning at least $8.5 million in healthcare stocks, including as much as $600,000 in stocks of health insurers participating in Medicare Advantage.

Oz also has a legacy of offering questionable health advice on his show. A study conducted by the British Medical Journal found that only 46% of Oz’s claims reviewed by the journal on his show withstood scientific scrutiny. In 2021, The New York Times reported that researchers whose job it was to ensure the accuracy of medical information on Oz’s show “said that they had little power to push back, and that they regularly questioned the show’s ethics to one another and discussed quitting in protest.”

In 2014, Oz was called to testify before the Senate subcommittee on consumer protection, where the chair, Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), expressed that Oz was promoting weight loss scams on his show. In 2015, ten physicians emailed an administrator at Columbia University, where Oz served on the faculty, accusing Oz of “manifesting an egregious lack of integrity by promoting quack treatments and cures in the interest of personal financial gain.” Previously, in 2004, Columbia paid a fine for violations of the Animal Welfare Act after the university investigated its animal research practices, including research conducted by Oz. A review of Oz’s published studies found that between 1989 and 2010, “Oz’s team conducted experiments on at least 1,027 live animal subjects” which resulted in the death of numerous animals including at least 329 dogs. In 2018, Oz became an emeritus professor at Columbia, which later appeared to scrub its connection with him from its website.

When the Covid-19 pandemic arrived in the United States in 2020, Oz appeared on Fox News to promote hydroxychloroquine.. Oz also suggested, before recanting, that reopening schools at the height of covid was “an appetizing opportunity” that would “only cost us 2 to 3 percent in terms of total mortality.”

In 2022, Oz was a candidate for the U.S. Senate to represent Pennsylvania. He won the Republican nomination in the state by 951 votes following Trump’s endorsement. During his Senate run, he was dogged by allegations that he did not live in Pennsylvania and criticized for obfuscating the number of houses he owns. In his campaign, Oz expressed support for the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade, endorsed extreme abortion restrictions, called Dr. Anthony Fauci a “tyrant” and said he should be fired and advocated against the Affordable Care Act. Many positions that Oz took during the 2022 race contrasted with previous statements he made supporting the ACA and gun regulations and warning about the health impacts of fracking.

During Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, Oz hosted Trump on his show after the candidate refused to release his medical records to the public. During the episode, Oz reviewed some papers that purportedly contained some of Trump’s medical information and “marveled aloud at each test result.” Oz later made the media rounds, assuring the American public that Trump was ‘healthy enough to be president.’” During Trump’s first administration, the then-president appointed Oz to the Presidential Council on Sports, Fitness, and Nutrition.

WHAT PROJECT 2025 SAYS ABOUT HEALTHCARE

THE POLICIES

– Repeal, with the help of Congress, the provision in the Inflation Reduction Act (​​IRA) that allows Medicare to negotiate prescription drug prices.

– Separate the subsidized Affordable Care Act (ACA) exchange market from the non-subsidized insurance market to give the “non-subsidized market regulatory relief from the costly ACA regulatory mandates.”

– Eliminate the ability of the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) to take a “prescriptive character,” such as stating “school children must be vaccinated or masked.”

– Decommission the CDC Foundation (which supports the CDC) and National Institutes of Health Foundation (which supports the NIH).

– End research using “embryonic stem cells,” which Project 2025 describes as involving “the destruction of human life,” and restore authority for “religious accommodation of those who cannot take or administer vaccines, including those made or tested with aborted fetal cell lines.”

PROJECT 2025 HAS ALREADY STARTED

– Republicans have attempted to repeal the ACA nearly 70 times, with a “skinny” repeal amendment failing 49 to 51, with 49 Republicans voting “yes” and only Senators Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, and John McCain voting “no.”

– When COVID-19 Medicaid protections ended, officials in Arizona, Arkansas, Idaho, New Hampshire, and South Dakota quickly removed many people from Medicaid.

– The 5th Circuit blocked the COVID-19 vaccine requirement for U.S. government workers.

– In 2023, Mississippi’s Attorney General declined to defend Mississippi’s long-standing vaccination requirements against lawsuits by anti-vaccine groups. Before this move, Mississippi’s vaccine requirements had resulted in one of the highest vaccination rates in the United States, with 99% of kindergarteners being immunized.

HOW ARE PROJECT 2025’S POLICIES POSSIBLE?

– Repealing the IRA would require congressional legislation.

– CDC has the authority to operationalize many of Project 2025’s CDC policy proposals, including those that specify not enforcing regulations, ending grant-making, and eliminating certain data collection functions.