The U.S. Senate has confirmed celebrity doctor and former TV host Dr. Mehmet Oz to head the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), the agency responsible for overseeing healthcare for nearly half the American population.
The confirmation passed on a 53-45 party-line vote, with Republicans supporting the nomination. Oz, 64, was appointed by President Donald Trump, who praised him as a physician “more qualified and capable… to make America healthy again.”
Though trained as a heart surgeon, Dr. Oz gained national fame as a medical expert on The Oprah Winfrey Show and later hosted The Dr. Oz Show from 2009 to 2022. His rise in media made him a household name, but it also drew criticism from medical professionals who accused him of promoting questionable health practices, such as miracle weight-loss cures and alternative medicine.
Oz also stirred controversy during the Covid-19 pandemic by suggesting the use of malaria drugs as a possible treatment—claims that were later widely discredited by the medical community.
Despite lacking previous government experience, Oz is now in charge of one of the most powerful positions in U.S. healthcare. The CMS administers Medicare and Medicaid, two programs that together spent over $1.4 trillion in 2023, and sets payment policies for doctors, hospitals, and pharmaceutical companies.
Dr. Oz is expected to work closely with Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., another unconventional Trump appointee, in what Trump’s team calls a mission to “take on the illness industrial complex.”
Democrats voiced concern over Oz’s past promotion of pseudoscience and raised questions about his finances. Some alleged he failed to pay more than $400,000 in Medicare taxes on media income between 2021 and 2023. A spokesperson for Oz, however, said the Office of Government Ethics found no wrongdoing.
His confirmation marks a dramatic shift in how the U.S. government is managing healthcare policy, blending politics, media, and medicine under a controversial but high-profile figure.