Surgeon, TV star… Who is Mehmet Oz, appointed to a key health position by Donald Trump?

Mehmet Oz is not afraid to use the medical metaphor. “Today America's heartbeat is on red alert and needs a defibrillator to be brought back to life”declared this doctor in 2022 to explain his entry into politics. Two years later, this star TV surgeon was appointed by Donald Trump on Tuesday, November 19, to manage the enormous American public health insurance program.

“The United States is plunged into a public health crisis and there is no doctor more qualified than Dr. Oz to restore America to health.”said the president-elect, in a press release. “It will also reduce waste and fraud at our nation’s most expensive government agency.”promised Donald Trump. Mehmet Oz will serve as administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, a large-scale agency with annual expenditures of $2.6 trillion.

The agency manages Medicare, the federal health insurance program for people aged 65 or older and people with disabilities, recalls Reuters (new window). She also oversees Medicaid, the state health insurance program for low-income people, which is jointly funded by the states and the federal government. The two programs provide health insurance to more than 140 million Americans.

Mehmet Oz, a 64-year-old American millionaire of Turkish origin, experienced a major electoral failure: he failed to be elected to the Senate in November 2022. During the campaign for the post of senator from Pennsylvania, the one of the most contested seats of the mid-term elections, “Dr. Oz” had been accused by his Democratic opponent John Fetterman of having been parachuted into this state in the northeast of the United States, a former stronghold steel, he who resided in New Jersey until shortly before the election. The candidate dubbed by Donald Trump was immediately accused by the opposing camp of being disconnected from reality because of his fortune and his luxurious homes.

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“I have known Mehmet Oz for 25 years, I was on his show a few years ago”confided Donald Trump during a campaign meeting in 2022. The candidate for the post of senator then told him that he was “in great shape” more “could lose ten kilos”Donald Trump had fun. In 2018, says CNN (new window)the President of the United States appointed Mehmet Oz to the President's Council on Sports, Fitness, and Nutrition, reappointing him to the position in 2020.

“Dr. Oz Show”

Dubbed in the 2000s by the popess of American television Oprah Winfrey, who invited him as an expert on her set, the surgeon had his own show from 2009 to early 2022. The “Dr. Oz Show” made him a celebrity and helped him build a following thanks to his affable style and his anti-aging and weight loss advice. The doctor, who is married and has four children, even has his star on the famous “Walk of Fame” in Hollywood.

Its health recommendations, sometimes punctuated with qualifiers like “magic” or “miracle”however, earned him criticism from colleagues. This defender of alternative medicine and treatments is accused of having promoted ineffective or potentially dangerous treatments or dietary supplements. At the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, Mehmet Oz, then a regular Fox News commentator, talked about hydroxychloroquine as a way to treat the virus despite the lack of solid scientific evidence. A few years earlier, in 2014, Mehmet Oz was reprimanded by senators during a congressional hearing for his promotion of weight loss products on his television show, says CNN.

Mehmet Oz has in the past defended opinions that do not conform to traditional republican orthodoxy, specifies the American media. As a doctor, for example, he advocated that everyone in America have insurance. This view is shared by progressives, notably Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, who has long advocated for “Medicare for all.” Mehmet Oz also said the government should provide health care coverage to Americans who cannot afford it. “It should be mandatory that everyone in America have health coverage. If you can't afford it, we have to give it to you.”he told the Seattle Times in 2009.

The appointment of the surgeon to pilot the enormous American public health insurance program, like those of other television stars to key positions, was criticized by the Democratic camp. “We are becoming the world's first reality TV show with nuclear weapons”mocked elected Jim Himes, Connecticut representative in the House of Representatives.

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For New Jersey Representative Frank Pallone Jr., this nomination shows that Donald Trump “is not concerned about Americans' health care”. “Given the critical importance of this agency, I am alarmed that the President-elect has chosen a television celebrity without the experience or background to lead it”he said in a press release. “By nominating both Robert Kennedy Jr (head of the Ministry of Health, editor’s note) and Dr. Oz, Donald Trump doubles down on leaders who peddle dangerous misinformation endangering public health”he lamented.