Dr. Mehmet Oz. Credit: Senate Finance Committee
The Senate today voted 53-45 to confirm Dr. Mehmet Oz — a cardiothoracic surgeon known to the public as a former medical TV talk show host — as the administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
All 53 Senate Republicans voted for Oz, and all Senate Democrats who voted opposed him.
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Two Senate Democrats, Tammy of Illinois and Patty Murray of Washington state, missed the vote.
CMS is the part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services that oversees Medicare and Medicaid.
CMS shares jurisdiction over HealthCare.gov and other Affordable Care Act regulations and programs with regulators from the Internal Revenue Service and the Employee Benefits Security Administration.
Oz will take over as the head of CMS as the agency is reeling from the loss of at least about 300 of its 6,500 full-time equivalent positions to firings and other personnel moves. CMS employees and outside observers are trying to determine which CMS offices have been affected and how hard.
Related: Impact of 'HHS bloodletting' on federal commercial health insurance regulation unclear
Oz said in March during a Senate Finance Committee nomination hearing that he believes holding down U.S. health care spending is critical.
"I believe that a physician has a responsibility to tell patients what they need to know, even if the message is uncomfortable," Oz said. "Health care expenditures are growing 2% to 3% faster than our economy. That's not sustainable."
One concrete way to reduce costs and improve health system efficiency might be to encourage health plans to adopt a standardized package of services subject to prior authorization reviews, to reduce the administrative burdens for physicians associated with the reviews, Oz said.
Oz has a bachelor's degree from Harvard and a medical degree from the University of Pennsylvania.
He was an active member of the faculty of Columbia University's medical school from 2001 until 2018, and he was a host of "The Dr. Oz Show" from 2009 through 2022.
Oz left the TV show to run, unsuccessfully, as a Republican candidate for a Senate seat in Pennsylvania.
In 2020, while Oz was hosting the TV show, he looked into the possibility of helping to promote Medicare Advantage plans. He earned an insurance producer's license in New Jersey, with accident and health or sickness listed as the line of authority. He has not met his continuing education requirements, but the license will be active until June 30.
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Allison Bell
Allison Bell, a senior reporter at ThinkAdvisor and BenefitsPRO, previously was an associate editor at National Underwriter Life & Health. She has a bachelor's degree in economics from Washington University in St. Louis and a master's degree in journalism from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. She can be reached through X at @Think_Allison.
