President-elect Donald Trump announced Tuesday that he has chosen former surgeon and celebrity doctor Mehmet Oz to serve as the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services administrator. Oz, 64, is a University of Pennsylvania alum and ran unsuccessfully in Pennsylvania for a U.S. Senate seat in 2022.
"America is facing a Healthcare Crisis, and there may be no Physician more qualified and capable than Dr. Oz to Make America Healthy Again," Trump wrote in a statement on Truth Social. "He is an eminent Physician, Heart Surgeon, Inventor, and World-Class Communicator, who has been at the forefront of healthy living for decades."
MORE: Donald Trump picks Howard Lutnick, Haverford College's largest donor, as commerce secretary
In his new position, Oz would lead the agency that administers Medicare — a health insurance program for people age 65 or older and younger people with disabilities — and Medicaid — which provides health insurance for adults and children with limited income and resources. Trump also wrote on Truth Social that Oz would be working "closely" with Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who was chosen to lead the Department of Health and Human Services.
Oz previously shared his thoughts on Medicare policy when he co-authored a 2020 opinion column in Forbes that argued for a universal health coverage system. At the time, he proposed that every American not covered by Medicaid should be enrolled in a private Medicare Advantage plan.
Oz has also frequently clashed with medical experts — including in the early days of the pandemic when he promoted the malaria drugs hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine to ward off the coronavirus, the New York Times reported.
Trump said he has known Oz for "many years." In 2018, Oz was appointed by Trump to the President's Council on Sports, Fitness and Nutrition. Trump reappointed him to the position in 2020. Trump also endorsed Oz during his Senate run.
The son of Turkish immigrants, Oz was raised in Wilmington, Delaware, and holds dual citizenship in the United States and Turkey, where he also served in the Army during the 1980s. Oz attended Harvard University as an undergraduate student and went on to receive his medical degree from Penn, where he also earned an MBA from the Wharton School. He primarily practiced medicine in New York, where he also worked as a professor at Columbia University, and received numerous awards during a career that propelled him into the limelight as a charismatic proponent of trendy health tips.
He rose to national prominence as a health expert on Oprah Winfrey's daytime TV show. He later starred in his own program, "The Dr. Oz Show," which ran for more than a decade and earned him nine Daytime Emmy Awards. He and his wife, Lisa, founded HealthCorps, a nonprofit that has aimed to help underserved teens for the past two decades.
Oz ran for U.S. Senate in 2022 after beating Dave McCormick in the Republican primary. Questions about the depth of his connections to Pennsylvania — including whether he lived there — followed him throughout his campaign against Democratic candidate John Fetterman, a race that was marked by social media barbs and fiery campaign ads. Amid questions about his residency, Oz's team told ABC News that he had moved in late 2020 to a house owned by his wife's family in Bryn Athyn, Montgomery County. Fetterman won the election.
Also on Tuesday, Trump announced that he's nominating Howard Lutnick, a Haverford College alum and the largest donor in the Delaware County school's history, to be the next commerce secretary.
