President Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services will likely face questions during his confirmation hearing Friday about his past support of expanding the Medicare Advantage program as well as his financial ties to the industry he will be tasked with overseeing.
If confirmed, Mehmet Oz, known best for his time as a TV personality and host of the daytime talk show “The Dr. Oz Show,” would be in charge of the federal agency responsible for providing health insurance through Medicaid, Medicare, the Children’s Health Insurance Program and other programs.
Lawmakers have expressed concern over Oz’s qualifications to lead CMS, an agency responsible for providing 160 million Americans’ health insurance. But doubts about his background and potential conflicts of interest will likely take center stage, though Oz’s nomination is far less controversial than that of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director nominee Dave Weldon, whose nomination was pulled just an hour before he was to appear before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee Thursday.
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