Trump’s Medicare nominee Dr. Oz suppressed questionable treatments
Prior to his announcement as President Donald Trump’s nominee to be the nation’s health insurance chief, Dr. Mehmet Oz was known for pushing questionable medical treatments on his daytime talk show.
His claims about products that can help people lose weight without changing their diet or exercise habits were the subject of a 2014 Senate hearing. In 2015, 10 doctors They wrote a letter to the president of Columbia University saying Oz should not be on campus.
“Dr. Oz has repeatedly shown criticism of science and evidence-based medicine, as well as baseless and persistent opposition to the genetic engineering of food crops,” they wrote, according to CBS News. moreover, he has shown extreme dishonesty by promoting bogus treatments and therapies for financial gain.
Oz is a trained cardiologist with degrees from Harvard University and the University of Pennsylvania. He has worked at Columbia University and New York Presbyterian Medical Center. She rose to fame as a regular guest on “The Oprah Winfrey Show,” before hosting her own daytime talk show, “The Dr. Oz Show,” from 2009 to 2022. She ended her show to run for the US Senate in Pennsylvania as a representative. Republican, losing to Democrat John Fetterman.
Dr. “He’s a great surgeon,” said Pieter Cohen, an assistant professor at Harvard Medical School. “He started giving a lot of thoughtful advice, and as the years went by, he delved into areas that weren’t based on science. He was advocating for things that were not in the best interest of the customers.”
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Trump said he would nominate Oz to run the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the federal agency that runs the two federally funded health insurance programs — which together enroll more than 145 million Americans — conduct a quality assessment of hospitals and nursing homes, and facilities. health care reform under the Affordable Care Act.
Liz Huston, a spokeswoman for the Trump-Vance transition team, said Oz “has been championing the core values of Making America Healthy Again for decades.” He said she will be “an invaluable asset to the Trump-Vance administration, bringing professional leadership and an unwavering commitment to real health care reform.”
A request for an interview sent to Oz’s website did not immediately receive a response.
Cohen criticized Oz for hosting a TV segment on a weight loss plan that involved eating 500 calories a day – the average adult needs 2,000 calories – and take pregnancy hormone supplements. “You’re going to lose weight if you don’t eat, so (hormones) have nothing to do with it,” he said.
He said that Oz should have done a show explaining the problems with this method, but instead brought in people who lost weight that way, making it seem like hormone therapy led to to lose weight.
Controversial Senate hearing
At the start of a 2014 Senate hearing, the band played a clip from Oz that said, “You might think witchcraft is fiction, but these little beans have scientists claiming they’ve found a cure for weight loss.” of bodies for every body type.” He was referring to a study of green coffee beans that scientists later reversed, according to the New York Times.
Then-Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., told Oz: “I don’t understand why you’re saying these things because you know they’re not true. So, when you have this amazing megaphone and this amazing ability to communicate, why would you reduce your money by saying such things?”
Oz proved that he never sold supplements and looked at the camera at the end of every show to say so. He also said his parts were taken out of context by satirists to sell their products, and he took responsibility for the “passionate language” he was expressing.
He said: “My program has clarified our editor about promising contributions. “We have been difficult to present opportunities and we have included opposing voices in these sections.”
Senate Republicans support
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services is the federal agency that administers the two insurance programs. The agency decides each year how much Medicare pays doctors and hospitals for services, and private insurance companies often use those rates to determine what services they offer. .
If approved, Oz may have the facility cover treatments that have not been reviewed by the Food and Drug Administration or have limited evidence of benefit, according to Inside Health Policy.
“Dr. Oz will be a leader in promoting disease prevention, so we will get the best results in the world for every dollar we spend on health care in our great country.” ,” Trump said in his announcement. “He will also reduce waste and fraud in our nation’s most expensive government agency, which accounts for a third of our nation’s health care spending, and a quarter of our nation’s entire budget. .”
Some Democrats take shots at Oz history.
“Dr. Oz knows nothing about selling innocent Americans without facing the consequences,” Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., said in a statement. “Americans deserve a CMS leader who will stand up against Big Pharma and insurance fraudsters are ripping off seniors and denying them health care, and I’m not sure a talk show host is going to fight back.”
But Republicans overwhelmingly support Oz’s nomination, which is all he will need to win confirmation in the Senate where he will hold a majority. This includes Sen. Moderate Susan Collins of Maine, who told POLITICO, “It would be good to have someone who is a former health care provider running the agency because he would have a completely different perspective..”
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