Trump picks TV’s Dr. Oz to run Medicare and Medicaid

News | November 19, 2024
FILE PHOTO: Pennsylvania Republican Senate candidate Dr. Mehmet Oz votes during the midterm election in Montgomery County

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. President-elect Donald Trump said on Tuesday that he had chosen celebrity doctor Mehmet Oz to serve as administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

Oz, known as “Dr. Oz”, unsuccessfully ran for the U.S. Senate in 2022. Trump, who endorsed Oz in that race, said he would work closely with Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has been nominated to lead the Department of Health and Human Services.

Trump said the pair would take on “the illness industrial complex, and all the horrible chronic diseases left in its wake” as well as cutting what he called waste and fraud.

“Our broken Healthcare System harms everyday Americans, and crushes our Country’s budget,” Trump said in a statement. Saying Oz would be a leader in “incentivizing disease prevention”.

(Reporting by Jasper Ward;Editing by Caitlin Webber and David Ljunggren)