Echoing a party-line vote by the U.S. Senate Finance Committee final week, the chamber’s Republicans on Thursday confirmed President Donald Trump’s nominee to go the Facilities for Medicare and Medicaid Companies, former televison host Dr. Mehmet Oz.
Since Trump nominated Oz — who beforehand ran as a Republican for a U.S. Senate seat in Pennsylvania — a variety of critics have argued that the superstar cardiothoracic surgeon “is profoundly unqualified to steer any a part of our healthcare system, not to mention an company as necessary as CMS,” in the words of Robert Weissman, co-president of the buyer advocacy group Public Citizen.
After Thursday’s 53-45 vote to substantiate Oz, Weissman declared that “Republicans within the Senate continued to simply be a rubber stamp for a harmful agenda that threatens to show again the clock on healthcare in America.”
Weissman warned that “along with having vital conflicts of curiosity, Ozis now poised to assist enact the Trump administration’s harmful agenda, which seeks to strip essential healthcare providers by Medicare, Medicaid, and the Reasonably priced Care Act from tons of of hundreds of thousands of Individuals and to make use of that cash to present tax breaks to billionaires.”
“As he confirmed in his affirmation listening to, Ozcan even search to additional privatize Medicare, growing the chance that seniors will obtain inferior care and additional threatening the long-term well being of the Medicare program. We already know that privatized Medicare prices taxpayers almost $100 billion yearly in extra prices,” he continued, referring to Medicare Advantage plans.
CMS is a part of the Division of Well being and Human Companies, now led by Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — who, like Oz, got here beneath hearth for his file of doubtful claims in the course of the affirmation course of. Weissman mentioned that “Dr. Ozis becoming a member of a staff of snake oil salesmen and anti-science flunkies which have already proven disdain for the American folks and their well being. That is yet one more darkish day for healthcare in America beneath Trump.”
In the midst of Trump’s tariff catastrophe, the Senate is voting to substantiate quack grifter Dr. Ozto steer the Facilities for Medicaid & Medicare Companies.
— Jen Bendery (@jbendery.bsky.social) April 3, 2025 at 9:29 AM
Ozs affirmation got here a day after Trump announced globally disruptive tariffs and Senate Republicans unveiled a budget plan that will give the rich trillions of {dollars} in tax cuts on the expense of federal meals help and healthcare packages.
“Whereas Dr. Ozwould relatively play coy, that is no hypothetical. Dangerous cuts to Medicaid or Medicare are unavoidable within the Trump-Republican price range plan that prioritizes one other big tax break for the president’s billionaire and company donors,” Tony Carrk, govt director of the watchdog group Accountable.US, mentioned forward of the vote.
“None of Dr. Ozs ‘miracle’ cures that he’s peddled through the years will assist seniors when their basic well being safety is ripped away to make the wealthy richer,” Carrk continued. “And whereas privatizing Medicare could enrich Dr. Ozs household and massive insurance coverage buddies, it is going to price taxpayers much more and go away hundreds of thousands of sufferers susceptible to denials of care and better out-of-pocket prices.”
Lee Saunders, president of the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Workers (AFSCME), was equally essential, saying after the vote that “at a time when our inhabitants is rising older and the necessity for entry to dwelling care, nursing houses, reasonably priced pharmaceuticals, and high quality medical care has by no means been larger, Individuals deserve higher than a snake oil salesman main the Facilities for Medicare and Medicaid Companies.”
“Dr. Mehmet Ozhas been shilling pseudoscience to line his personal pockets. He can’t be trusted to defend Medicare and Medicaid from billionaires who need to dismantle and privatize the inspiration of reasonably priced healthcare on this nation,” the union chief added. “AFSCME members — together with nurses, dwelling care and childcare suppliers, social staff and extra — will likely be watching and preventing again in opposition to any effort to weaken Medicare and Medicaid. The 147 million seniors, youngsters, Individuals with disabilities, and low-income staff who depend on these packages for reasonably priced entry to healthcare deserve nothing much less.”
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