Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pennsylvania) on Tuesday opened the door to supporting his former rival Mehmet Oz as administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS).
“If Dr. Oz cares about protecting and preserving Medicare and Medicaid, I would vote for him,” Fetterman said in the paper. Post on social platform X.
President-elect Trump announced Tuesday his Senate-confirmed nomination of Oz to run CMS.
“Dr. Oz will be a leader in encouraging disease prevention so that every dollar we spend on health care in this great country will yield the best results in the world,” President Trump said in a statement Tuesday.
“The President will also reduce waste and fraud within our nation's most expensive government agency, which accounts for a third of our health care costs and a quarter of our national budget,” he added.
In the 2022 midterm elections, Mr. Oz and Mr. Fetterman competed for the seat held by former Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pennsylvania), and the latter won. During the campaign, Fetterman mocked Oz many times. The most notable are the comments The doctor told me that “crudité” is expensive.
Oz and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., President Trump's nominee to head the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), both have a history of promoting unsubstantiated medical claims.
Kennedy has already faced backlash from Democrats as Trump's nominee for Health and Human Services secretary, with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York calling the former independent presidential candidate's promotion to HHS secretary “a comeback.” We will be talking about it.” Until the 1700s and 1800s. ”
The Hill has reached out to Trump's transition team for comment.
