Senate confirms Mehmet Oz to take lead of Medicare and Medicaid agency
[April 04, 2025]
By AMANDA SEITZ
WASHINGTON (AP) — Former heart surgeon and TV pitchman Dr. Mehmet Oz was
confirmed Thursday to lead the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid
Services.
Oz became the agency's administrator in a party line 53-45 vote.
The 64-year-old will manage health insurance programs for roughly half
the country, with oversight of Medicare, Medicaid or Affordable Care Act
coverage. He steps into the new role as Congress is debating cuts to the
Medicaid program, which provides coverage to millions of poor and
disabled Americans.
Oz has not said yet whether he would oppose such cuts to the
government-funded program, instead offering a vision of promoting
healthier lifestyles, integrating artificial intelligence and telehealth
into the system, and rethinking rural health care delivery.
During a hearing last month, he told senators that he did favor work
requirements for Medicaid recipients, but paperwork shouldn’t be used to
reaffirm that they are working or to block people from staying enrolled.
Oz, who worked for years a respected heart surgeon at Columbia
University, also noted that doctors dislike Medicaid for its relatively
low payments and some don’t want to take those patients.
He said that when Medicaid eligibility was expanded without improving
resources for doctors, that made care options even thinner for the
program’s core patients, which include children, pregnant women and
people with disabilities.
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 “We have to make some important
decisions to improve the quality of care,” he said.
Oz has formed a close relationship with his new
boss, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. He's hosted the health secretary and his
inner circle regularly at his home in Florida. He's leaned into
Kennedy's campaign to “Make America Healthy Again," an effort to
redesign the nation’s food supply, reject vaccine mandates and cast
doubt on some long-established scientific research.
The former TV show host talks often about the importance of a
healthy diet, aligning closely with Kennedy's views.
While has has faced some criticism for promoting unproven vitamin
supplements and holistic treatments — staples of the “MAHA movement"
— he's regularly encouraged Americans to get vaccinated.
Oz will take over CMS days after the agency was spared from the type
of deep cuts that Kennedy ordered at other public health agencies.
Thousands of staffers at the Food and Drug Administration, Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention, as well as the National
Institutes for Health are out of a job after mass layoffs that
started Tuesday.
CMS is expected to lose about 300 staffers, including those who
worked on minority health and to shrink the cost of health care
delivery.
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