Breaking: Oz Is In

By Adam Garrie, Breaking News Reporter, The Kennedy Beacon

In a 53-45 vote that followed strict party lines, the U.S. Senate on Thursday voted to confirm Dr. Mehmet Oz as the new Administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS).

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As CMS Administrator, Dr. Oz faces the daunting and vital task of improving Medicare and Medicaid delivery while examining ways to make both programs more efficient.

Dr. Oz, a charismatic former heart surgeon who first came to prominence after a 2004 appearance on the Oprah Winfrey Show, rapidly developed a reputation as a trusted physician uniquely skilled at communicating complex medical issues in a clear and cogent manner.

Between 2009 and 2022, he hosted the Emmy-award winning “Dr. Oz Show,” which was syndicated nationwide.

More recently, he has formed a close bond with HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and has been an active supporter of the Make American Healthy Again (MAHA) agenda — one that aims, above all, to reduce the chronic disease epidemic in America.

Medicare is the country's largest government-funded healthcare program. For decades, questions about how to improve patient outcomes, delivery, and cost efficiency have raged among both doctors and elected officials.

Offering his view on the state of U.S. healthcare during his confirmation hearing before the Senate Finance Committee, Dr. Oz said, “The most expensive care we give is bad care. You pay to do the wrong thing, you pay to fix what was done wrong, then you pay to deal with all the complications. It's immoral, it's wrong, and it's expensive.”

Dr. Oz appears open to making big changes to Medicare and Medicaid, which taken together cover roughly 50% of Americans. He has addressed the cumbersome system that forces patients to seek “prior authorization” before being treated and has suggested he may slim down and alter a process many Americans feel is complicated, slow and arcane.

For procedures that remain under prior authorization, Dr. Oz said that AI could be leveraged to reduce waiting times.

Dr. Oz graduated from Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania before practicing cardiothoracic surgery. He later served as a professor at Columbia University and directed the Cardiovascular Institute and Complementary Medicine Program at New York-Presbyterian Hospital.

Oz has written hundreds of peer-reviewed research papers and holds patents to several medical devices.

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