The President-elect of the United States, Donald Trump, announced this Tuesday (19) the appointment of Dr. Mehmet Oz, well-known TV presenter and former Senate candidate, to lead the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS, in acronym in English).
CMS is responsible for administering programs that provide health coverage to about half of the American population, including Medicare, Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program and the Obamacare marketplace, Healthcare.gov.
Trump stated that these four programs represent an expenditure of US$1.6 trillion, which corresponds to almost 25% of the federal budget. “America is facing a healthcare crisis, and there may be no doctor more qualified and capable than Dr. Oz to make America healthy again,” Trump said.
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Oz, who hosted “The Dr. Oz Show” for more than a decade, was the Republican candidate for Senate in Pennsylvania in 2022, but lost to Democrat John Fetterman. Trump also announced last week his intention to nominate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., known for being anti-vaccine, as secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, of which CMS is a part.
“Dr. Oz is an eminent physician, heart surgeon, inventor and world-class communicator who has been at the forefront of healthy living for decades. He will work closely with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to confront the disease industrial complex and all the horrible chronic diseases it has left in its wake,” Trump said.
The president-elect also criticized the current healthcare system, saying it harms ordinary Americans and compromises the country’s budget.
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“Dr. Oz will be a leader in promoting disease prevention, ensuring we get the best outcomes in the world for every dollar we spend on healthcare in our great country,” Trump said. “It will also cut waste and fraud within the nation’s most expensive government agency, which accounts for a third of the nation’s healthcare spending and a quarter of our total national budget.”
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