Celebrity doctor and former TV host Mehmet Oz has been confirmed by the US Senate to run the agency that oversees the healthcare of millions of Americans.
Oz, who has never held public office, was picked last year by President Donald Trump to lead the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS).
On Thursday, he was confirmed to the role by the Republican-controlled US Senate by a party-line vote of 53-45.
The 64-year-old, whose approaches have come under scrutiny, trained as a surgeon before finding fame on The Oprah Winfrey Show in the early 2000s.
Health experts have previously criticised Oz’s promotion of what they deem to be bad health advice about weight-loss drugs and “miracle cures”, and for suggesting malaria drugs could be used as a cure for Covid-19 at the start of the pandemic.
After picking Oz to lead CMS, Trump said in a statement there “there may be no physician more qualified and capable…to make America healthy again”.
Ahead of his inauguration, Trump’s transition team said Oz would “work closely” with US Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr to “take on the illness industrial complex”.
The CMS oversees the country’s largest healthcare programs, providing coverage to roughly half of Americans.
It regulates health insurance and sets policy that guides the prices that doctors, hospitals and drug companies are paid for medical services.
In 2023, the US government spent more than $1.4tn (£1.1tn) on Medicaid and Medicare combined, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
Oz also hosted The Dr Oz Show, in which he offered health advice to viewers, from 2009 to 2022.
But he was scrutinised for recommending homeopathy, alternative medicine and other treatments that critics have called “pseudoscience”.
Democrats have previously claimed a review of his financial records suggests Oz may not have paid $403,739 in Medicare taxes on more than $10 million of income from his media company between 2021 to 2023.
However, a spokesperson for Oz said a review by the Office of Government Ethics found he had complied with the law.
