Pennsylvania Republican U.S. Senate candidate Dr. Mehmet Oz poses for a portrait outside of a poling location during the primary election in Rockledge, Pennsylvania, U.S. May 17, 2022.
Hannah Beier | Reuters
President-elect Donald Trump on Tuesday said he would nominate Dr. Mehmet Oz, the celebrity TV host physician, to lead the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.
CMS operates or oversees health-care programs that provide coverage to about 1 out of every 2 Americans, including Medicare, Medicaid, the Children’s Health Insurance Program, and the Obamacare marketplace exchange Healthcare.gov.
Those four programs account for $1.6 trillion in spending, or nearly 25% of the entire federal budget.
CMS is an agency within the Health and Human Services Department.
Trump last week said he would nominate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a vaccine skeptic and conspiracy theorist, as HHS secretary.
“Our broken Healthcare System harms everyday Americans, and crushes our Country’s budget,” Trump said in a statement announcing his intention to nominate Oz.
“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.”
Chiquita Brooks-LaSure is the current CMS administrator.
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