November 19, 2024

Health Care Huckster Appointed to Direct Medicare and Medicaid

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Today, Trump nominated Dr. Mehmet Oz, a former TV show host and failed Senate candidate, to oversee the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

Robert Weissman, co-president of Public Citizen, issued the following statement in response to the news:

"Americans need a director of Medicare and Medicaid who will operate with the utmost integrity. They need someone who will crack down on insurers who want to deny care to the sick, providers who skimp on quality health care, corporations that want to privatize Medicare, and Big Pharma profiteers and ideologues who want to slash Medicaid and refuse care to low-income people.

"What they do not need is a health care huckster, which unfortunately Dr. Mehmet Oz appears to have become, having spent much of his recent career hawking products of dubious medical value.

"The role of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services is to crack down on scams and frauds, not to represent the interests of scammers and fraudsters.

"Americans do not deserve someone who has actively promoted further privatization of Medicare and wrongly touted chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine as treatments for Covid-19."