Mehmet Oz testifies before Senate committee, won't commit to opposing cuts to the Medicaid program he would run

Celebrity doctor and former Pennsylvania Senate candidate Mehmet Oz told senators he has the experience and reform ideas necessary to bring down the cost of health care and make Americans healthier in a hearing on Capitol Hill that showcased the former TV host’s penchant for charismatic salesmanship.

“My TV audience has heard me say this many times, but many of you are too busy to watch television so I’ll repeat it,” Oz said in a hearing before the Senate Finance Committee on Friday. “I believe that a physician has the responsibility to tell patients what they need to know, even if the message is uncomfortable.”

Oz then ran down a list of woeful statistics, including the nation’s obesity rate and maternal mortality rate.

“Those chronic diseases made it easy to be sick in America,” he said.

Oz’s testimony before a committee of senators was the first step in securing the votes to become head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, or CMS. The agency oversees the coordination and implementation of major health care programs such as Medicare, Medicaid, the Children’s Health Insurance Program, or CHIP, and the Affordable Care Act. Taken together, CMS oversees health insurance coverage for nearly half of all Americans and a budget of about $1.5 trillion annually.

President Donald Trump announced Oz as his pick for the position in November, but the Senate committees scheduled all Cabinet-level position hearings first, completing the process with the confirmation of Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer on Tuesday.

The two-hour hearing was largely cordial as Oz, who has spent most of his career in TV, gave calm, polished answers to how he’d run the agency and suggested new technologies, regulatory changes, and increased investments could bring down rising health care costs and make the system more efficient and beneficial for patients that rely on it.

The most popular question from Democrats was whether Oz would protect Medicaid from cuts that they anticipate as Congress finds a way to meet a GOP-led resolution that requires $880 billion in slashes to the federal budget. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has said some of those cuts would inevitably have to come from Medicaid.

“Would you agree this morning to oppose any cuts to the Medicaid program? Yes or no?” Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., asked at the start of the hearing.

“I want to make sure patients today, and in the future, have resources to protect them. The way you protect Medicaid is by making sure that it’s viable at every level,” Oz said.

Later, Sen. Maggie Hassan, D-N.H., asked Oz: “How many children losing health insurance would be acceptable?”

“I don’t want children losing health insurance,” Oz said.

“Well then you’re going to need to reject the Republican budget plan,” Hassan said.

Oz, a Republican, and longtime television personality, made his foray into politics when he ran an unsuccessful campaign for Senate in 2022 against now-Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa. His residency became a major theme of the campaign then, given he relocated from New Jersey to run for the seat. Oz still owns a house in Bryn Athyn where his wife, Lisa Lemole Oz, has family and a mega-successful tree pruning company, Asplundh Tree Expert LLC.

Voting records also show Oz voted in Montgomery County in the presidential election last year.

Trump endorsed Oz in the 2022 GOP primary and this week nominated Oz’s son-in-law, John Jovanovic, to head the Export-Import Bank of the United States, the country’s official export credit agency. Jovanovic sat with his wife, TV host and food writer Daphne Oz, behind her father during the hearing.

In an introduction to the Senate committee, Oz touted his work as a cardiologist, developing medical devices, and his 11 Emmys on "The Dr. Oz Show." He said he wanted to address rising health care expenditures, and noted that Medicaid is the biggest expense for the federal government in most states.

Democrats on the committee had sent several scathing letters to Oz ahead of the hearing, expressing concern that he wanted to replace traditional Medicare with the privatized Medicare Advantage program, calling out anti-abortion comments he’s made, and questioning whether he’d personally evaded paying Social Security and Medicare taxes.

But the hearing itself was rarely contentious and Oz was an affable witness, bringing up anecdotes about individual senators’ states or conversations he’d had with them.

“Maybe you’ll invite me down to your church sometime,” Oz said to Georgia Sen. Raphael Warnock, D-Ga., after a conversation about how burdensome getting reenrolled in Medicaid can be.

“You’re invited any Sunday,” Warnock said. “You can’t preach, but you can come.”

Sen. Peter Welch, a Democrat from Vermont, told Oz he wants a CMS administrator who can stand up for patient needs. “You’re a very nice person,” Welch said. “I don’t want you to be nice when dealing with this stuff.”

While Oz showed he knows the often complex world of insurance and health care, some of his proposed solutions to big problems were relatively simple.

Asked about the nation’s nursing shortage, he mentioned the benefits of Telehealth. Asked about reforming payment programs and issues with previous authorization, he said he’d look to deal with the 12% of the CMS budget spent on “administrative costs.”

The Columbia medical school-educated surgeon acquiesced that some of the products promoted on his TV show were falsely hyped. During a line of questioning from Hassan, he acknowledged that Green Coffee Extract had been falsely marketed as a “miracle weight loss drug.”

If confirmed, Oz would report to Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who Oz commended in his opening remarks. But frustration with Kennedy, who has cast doubt on the efficacy of childhood vaccines, was apparent among some Democrats. Sen. Ben Luján, D-N.M., asked Oz if he believed the measles vaccine is safe and the most effective way to prevent against infection.

Oz answered in the affirmative, but acknowledged the limited power he’d have in the position over such matters.

“It is but if I could mention ... CMS should not be opining its own opinion or thoughts on vaccines,” Oz said. “Our job is to follow the rules so if the CDC is making decisions about the use of a vaccine ... my job is to ensure we pay for those vaccines.”

Now, Oz awaits further written questions from the committee and a vote in the coming weeks. Every one of Trump’s nominees that made it to a hearing has been confirmed in the Senate, which has a six-seat Republican majority. Oz is likely to clear the process as well.

If he does, he’ll likely be the most recognizable name ever to hold the position — and the only one with a square on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

“The experience you bring to this job is almost unprecedented,” Republican Sen. Steve Daines, of Montana, said. “You’re exactly the right person at the right time to take over this huge responsibility.”

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