TV personality Dr. Oz is Donald Trump’s choice to lead the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, leaving social media users horrified.
On Tuesday (November 19), President-Elect Donald Trump announced that he was selecting Dr. Mehmet Oz, the former celebrity heart surgeon who became a television personality before getting into politics. The move garnered a slew of responses from social media onlookers who were appalled at the choice, which aligns with Trump’s prior picks of television personalities to fill the cabinet for his incoming presidential administration.
In a statement, Trump wrote that Oz would “work closely with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to take on the illness industrial complex, and all the horrible chronic diseases left in its wake.”
Oz’s reputation grew after being featured on media mogul Oprah Winfrey’s long-running talk show numerous times, which led to a spinoff, The Dr. Oz Show, in 2009. That show lasted for 13 seasons, earning him an Emmy Award.
He’s also written several books, and while he stopped performing surgeries in 2018, he is still licensed as a doctor in Pennsylvania. He lost to the current Democratic Senator, John Fetterman, in that state in 2022. Fetterman claimed in a post on X, formerly Twitter, that he’d support Oz’s nomination: “If Dr. Oz is about protecting and preserving Medicare and Medicaid, I’m voting for the dude.”
Oz and Trump have a distinct bond, with Oz being on the President’s Council on Sports, Fitness, and Nutrition in Trump’s first term. The response on social media to the choice of Dr. Oz left many concerned. One user on X, formerly Twitter, wrote, “America is once again the laughingstock of the world.”
Others pointed to his extensive history of his ties to companies pushing false medical cures and of his push to privatize Medicare. That stance is aligned with the Republican Party’s previously expressed aims of gutting Medicare and Medicaid. More pointed out how he was promoting hydroxychloroquine as a drug to combat COVID-19 during the early days of the pandemic, which was proven false.
“CMS is a critical agency & we need serious leaders to protect Americans’ health care and bring down costs—not TV hosts whose main qualification is their loyalty to Trump,” wrote former Senator Patty Murray of Washington in a post on X.
Dr. Oz has zero qualifications, pushes alarming pseudoscience, & holds extreme anti-abortion views.
CMS is a critical agency & we need serious leaders to protect Americans’ health care and bring down costs—not TV hosts whose main qualification is their loyalty to Trump. https://t.co/QgbaIHV9AJ
— Senator Patty Murray (@PattyMurray) November 20, 2024
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Photo: Getty