The Senate confirms Dr. Oz to Ovarse Medicare and Medicaid

Thursday the Senate confirmed Dr. Mehmet Oz, the celebrity television doctor, 53-45 and mainly along the party lines to guide medicate and medicaid, which ensure almost half of all Americans.

The future of both programs is the subject of ferocious debate: the Republicans are contemplating significant cuts in Medicaid, which provides low -income health care. The Trump administration and the Gop legislators have proposed considerable reductions in Medicoid expenditure in part to find savings to be paid for the Trump President Trump tax cutting package.

Dr. Oz, 64, has been a vocal supporter of Medicare Advantage for years, private insurance plans for the older Americans, despite the federal investigations and the concerns of the legislators that insurers excess the government of the government from tens of billions of dollars a year. He promoted him in his television program and acted as a broker for a company that sells the plan.

His confirmation hearing in front of the Senate Financial Committee Last month, he seemed to recognize problems with Medicare Advantage and tried to reassure the senators that there was a “new sheriff in the city”.

The Democrats of the Committee grid him for a long time for potential steep cuts to Medicaid, which could involve a considerable number of people who become not eligible for health coverage.

In the last few days, the Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has supervised Deep cuts to the Department of Health and Human Servicesincluding the dismissal of about 10,000 employees in addition to another 10,000 buyouts, retirements and departures at the beginning of the new Trump administration.

The cuts also influence Dr. Oz’s agency, the centers for medicate and medicaid services, which has a budget of about $ 1.5 trillion of annual expenses. However, Dr. Oz gave a few clues to what some change has planned.

Dr. Oz’s ability to guarantee quite votes for confirmation was broadcast until recently. So, at the beginning of this week, Senator Josh Hawley, the Missouri Republican, He said he had decided to support his nomination Because Dr. Oz told him that he would no longer support transgender assistance for minors and was “unequivocally in favor of life”. Hawley had publicly said that he was holding his support on the previous positions of Dr. Oz on these issues.

The senators largely educated Criticism of the vast financial draw of Dr. OzS for companies that will supervise its new position.

He and his wife are rich. All in all, his businesses and his family initiatives are appreciated In the neighborhood of about $ 90 million to $ 335 million.

In an attempt to avoid conflicts, he announced in February that he would sell his interest for over 70 companies and investment funds.

He has earned tens of millions of dollars over the years by launching food supplements and promoting health -related companies in his television program.

The investments he said he planned to sell included shares in the Unitedhealth group, the giant conglomerate who is the largest supplier of the nation of private plans to medicate; Inception fertility holdings, a private company that manages a chain of clinics; And Amazon, who has a vast scope that now includes an online pharmacy and sells a myriad of devices and medical equipment.

In addition, he has undertaken to resign from various paid consultancy works.

However, the amplitude of its financial ties with countless health related companies has pushed legislators and ethical experts to express doubts about its ability to be independent.