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    Who is Mehmet Oz, Trump’s pick to lead Medicare and Medicaid?

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    Donald Trump has chosen Mehmet Oz, best known for starring in his eponymous daytime talkshow for more than a decade and leaning heavily into Trumpism during his failed 2022 run for a Pennsylvania Senate seat, to lead the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). The cardiothoracic surgeon, who faced immense backlash from the medical and scientific communities for pushing misinformation at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, will oversee the agency that operates on a $2.6tn annual budget and provides healthcare to more than 100 million people.“I am honored to be nominated by [Donald Trump] to lead CMS,” Oz posted on X on Tuesday. “I look forward to serving my country to Make America Healthy Again under the leadership of HHS Secretary [Robert F Kennedy Jr].”In the announcement of Oz’s selection, Trump said that Oz will “make America healthy again” and described him as “an eminent Physician, Heart Surgeon, Inventor, and World-Class Communicator, who has been at the forefront of healthy living for decades”.Oz has been on US television screens for nearly 20 years, first appearing on the Oprah Winfrey show in 2004. In that time, he’s talked to his audience about losing weight with fad diets and what it takes to have healthy poops and, toward the end of his run, touting hydroxychloroquine as a potential remedy for Covid-19.Here’s what to know about the New York University professor and surgeon turned television show host, and now Trump appointee.Who is Mehmet Oz?Oz, 64, is a Turkish American Ohio native best known for The Dr Oz Show, which ran from 2009 to 2022. His father was a surgeon in Turkey, and after Oz graduated high school in Delaware, he was admitted into Harvard. He also served in the Turkish military in order to maintain dual citizenship, the Associated Press reports.Before entering US homes via daytime TV, he had more than 20 years of experience as a cardiothoracic surgeon at Presbyterian-Columbia Medical Center in New York. He was also a professor at Columbia University’s medical school.His bona fides at the prestigious institutions earned him quick credibility with viewers, and his popularity garnered him nine Daytime Emmy awards for outstanding informative talkshow and host.Though his show ended in 2022, Oz maintains a YouTube channel filled with old episodes of his shows where he interviews guests like Penn Jillette about his weight loss and Robert F Kennedy Jr about his 2014 book about the presence of mercury in vaccines. He also has an Instagram account that boasts more than a million followers, where Oz shares photos of his family and sells products from iHerb, an online health and wellness brand for which he is global adviser.Oz’s questionable medical advice and time in politicsThroughout his TV tenure, Oz dabbled in the hallmarks of weight loss culture like detoxes, cleanses and diets that promised rapid weight loss. He also faced a grilling by senators in 2014 over claims he made and alleged false advertising on supplements he promoted on his show. When the Covid-19 pandemic hit, Oz regurgitated misinformation that came from the fringes of the right and medical communities.These comments continued when he threw his hat into the race to represent Pennsylvania in the US Senate in 2022 against John Fetterman. At the time, the Guardian wrote:“Oz was dogged by questions about his actual connection to the state during the campaign. Oz lived in New Jersey for decades before he moved to Pennsylvania in October 2020, into a home owned by his wife’s family. He announced his bid to be the state’s US senator just months later.”Following Fetterman’s stroke, during which he said he “​​almost died”, the Oz campaign launched unsavory attacks against him, with one Oz aide, Rachel Tripp, claiming Fetterman might not have had a stroke if he “had ever eaten a vegetable in his life”.Oz ultimately lost to Fetterman, who garnered 51% of the vote compared with Oz’s 46%.What will Oz run?Oz will succeed Chiquita Brooks-LaSure, the current administrator of CMS, to lead programs including Medicare, the federal health insurance program for people aged 65 or older and disabled people, and Medicaid, the state-based health insurance program for lower-income people, which is jointly funded by states and the federal government. The two programs provide health insurance for more than 140 million Americans.Also in the CMS fold are the Children’s Health Insurance Program (Chip) and the Health Insurance Marketplace, which was created by the Affordable Care Act under Barack Obama in 2010.Trump’s economic advisers and congressional Republicans are currently discussing possible cuts to Medicaid, food stamps and other government welfare programs to cover the costs of extending the president-elect’s multitrillion-dollar 2017 tax cut. More

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      Biden and Harris celebrate landmark deal to lower medication prices

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      Joe Biden and Kamala Harris on Thursday cast themselves as the champions of American seniors in a David-and-Goliath fight against big pharmaceutical companies, at a joint event touting a landmark deal to lower the cost of prescription drugs.“We finally beat big pharma,” the US president declared, sharing the stage with his vice-president for the first time since he abandoned his re-election bid in late July and Harris replaced him as the Democratic nominee.The event, which came after a morning announcement about new lower drug prices for beneficiaries of Medicare, a government health insurance plan for seniors, was an opportunity to persuade voters that their administration has helped ease costs after years of high inflation. Healthcare, particularly the high cost of prescription drugs, is a top concern for US voters. Biden had held a slight lead over Donald Trump for his platform throughout the year before he dropped out of the race.Harris spoke first, calling Biden “our extraordinary president”, as the crowd, packed into the gymnasium at Prince George’s Community College, rose to its feet to applaud the president. “Thank you, Joe,” they chanted in appreciation of – according to several attendees – his record and his decision to step aside and pass the torch to Harris.Biden called Harris an “incredible partner” and said she would “make one hell of a president”.“We finally addressed the longstanding issue that for years was one of the biggest challenges on this subject, which was that Medicare was prohibited by law from negotiating lower drug prices, and those costs then got passed on to our seniors,” Harris said. “But not any more.”The 10 drugs subject to negotiations, among them widely used blood thinners and diabetes medications, are expected to save $6bn for Medicare, which is a major government health insurance program covering Americans older than 65, and those with certain disabilities, the administration said. Seniors should save $1.5bn directly in out-of-pocket costs.The negotiated prices, which take effect in 2026, were authorized by the Inflation Reduction Act, that Biden emphasized passed without a single Republican vote. The vice-president cast the tie-breaking vote in her role as president of the Senate.“We pay way too much for prescription drugs in America,” the health and human services secretary, Xavier Becerra, said.Before Biden and Harris spoke, administration officials and Maryland politicians celebrated the deal while thrilling the crowd with discreet references to Harris’s candidacy.“President’s a good title for her,” the retiring Maryland senator Ben Cardin winked in his remarks, crediting Harris for helping to pass the Democrats’ sweeping health and climate change bill.Biden, who simultaneously touted his record in office and played pass-the-torch, warned that if given a second term, Trump – who the president mocked as “the guy we’re running against, what’s his name? Donald Dump?” – would repeal Medicare’s authority to negotiate drug prices. He named the sweeping conservative policy agenda, Project 2025, that Trump has sought to distance himself from.“Let me tell you what our Project 2025 is: beat the hell out of them,” Biden said, drawing loud applause.Republican lawmakers have been highly critical of the Biden administration’s move, arguing that government-negotiated drug prices will stifle innovation and result in fewer lifesaving drugs being brought to market.In a joint statement, House Republicans accused Biden of “price-fixing”.“Make no mistake, price fixing has failed in every sector and in every country where it has ever been tried,” the statement by the House speaker, Mike Johnson, and the Republican leadership team said. “The Biden-Harris administration says it wants to lower prices for families, but their prescription drug price fixing scheme has accomplished just two things: driving up health care costs and crushing American innovation in medicine.”View image in fullscreenThe double act attracted a raucous audience, with hundreds of people waiting in the summer heat to glimpse the president’s final act and the vice-president’s ascent.“I’ve been waiting for this moment for a long, long time,” Biden said, noting that the first time he introduced legislation to allow Medicare to negotiate drug prices was as a freshman senator shortly after he was elected, in 1972.“For the longest time I was too damn young because I was only 29 when I got elected,” he said. “Now I’m too damn old.”The negotiated prices, which take effect in 2026, are expected to save billions of dollars for the taxpayer-funded Medicare program. But they will lead to direct out-of-pocket savings for only a subset of the millions of older Americans who take the drugs subject to negotiations. Healthcare costs in the US have been rising for several decades, and Americans spend upwards of $13,000 a year on medical services and medications.The law already caps out-of-pocket costs for insulin at $35 a month for Medicare patients. It also calls for a $2,000 cap on out-of-pocket drug spending.Earlier this week, Harris and Biden participated in a Situation Room meeting to discuss the situation in the Middle East. They also appeared together on the tarmac at Joint Base Andrews to welcome home US citizens wrongfully detained in Russia.On the campaign trail, the economy and cost of living remain top issues for voters, as Democrats seek to convince them that the president’s economic policies have had an impact on their pocketbooks. Democrats cheered news on Wednesday of easing inflation. Consumer prices rose 2.9% July, falling below 3% for the first time since 2021, new government data showed. But Americans continue to be squeezed by the high cost of rent and groceries.On Friday, Harris will travel to North Carolina to deliver an economic policy speech, during which her campaign said she would call for a federal ban on price gouging on groceries. Though Trump had held an advantage on the economy over Biden, recent polling suggests Harris has erased much of his early lead.Wes Moore, the governor of Maryland, introduced Biden and Harris, referring to them as the 46th and 47th president of the United States, which prompted chants of “48” – a promising sign for the charismatic Democratic rising star.Linda Hunt, 80, said she rarely attended political events, but came to witness history.“I came to pay him respect – that’s primary but I also wanted to see and hear her in person,” she said. “It was historical.” More

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      Joe Biden attacks Republican ‘dream’ to slash Medicare and Social Security

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      Joe Biden attacks Republican ‘dream’ to slash Medicare and Social SecurityPresident makes comments in Florida speech, vowing to safeguard programs ahead of anticipated 2024 re-election campaign Joe Biden amplified his attacks on Republicans over Medicare and Social Security during a visit to Florida on Thursday, arguing that it was the party’s “dream” to slash the federal programs and vowing to be the “nightmare” that stops them.Speaking in Tampa, Biden outlined his administration’s plan to safeguard the popular entitlement programs as part of an ongoing war of words with his Republican opponents that began during his second State of the Union address on Tuesday.Ahead of an anticipated 2024 re-election campaign, the president has seen an opportunity to put Republicans on the defensive on an issue that resonates deeply with voters, and particularly seniors who rely on the programs and are a key part of their base.Joe Biden has steadied the nation – why don’t his polling numbers reflect this? | Robert ReichRead more“I know that a lot of Republicans – their dream is to cut Social Security and Medicare,” Biden said, during his remarks at University of Tampa. “If that’s your dream, I’m your nightmare.”Republicans have flatly rejected the assertion, despite a long record of proposing to do just that. During the midterms, several prominent Republicans opened the door to Medicare and Social Security cuts as part of their effort to reign in the federal budget.Many Republicans have accused Biden of lying about their fiscal agenda. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy said this week that cuts to Medicare and Social Security were “off the table” as part of any plan to reduce the nation’s debt.Their objection to the accusation on Tuesday night – loud howls from the chamber and shouts of “liar” – prompted a remarkable back-and-forth during the State of the Union, in which Biden paused to engage his hecklers. “Liar!” screamed the congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Republican of Georgia.Recalling the exchange, which he referred to as a “spirited debate”, Biden boasted that he had extracted assurances from them that they would not cut the programs. “Granted, I’ll believe it when I see it,” he told the audience on Thursday, as he highlighted individual Republican plans that he said would make the programs more vulnerable to budget cuts.Among them was an idea put forward by the Republican senator Rick Scott of Florida, who proposed sunsetting nearly all federal spending programs after five years. Holding up a pamphlet with the senator’s plan, Biden said subjecting Social Security and Medicare to periodic renewal votes would raise the likelihood of dramatic cuts.“The very idea the senator from Florida wants to put Social Security and Medicare on the chopping block every five years I find to be somewhat outrageous – so outrageous that you might not even believe it,” he said.In a tweet welcoming Biden to Florida, Scott accused the president of “lying to Floridians about Social Security and Medicare” and challenged him to a debate on the issue.Biden enjoys State of the Union reviews as Republicans stoke culture-war fireRead moreResponding to the senator’s pushback, Biden quipped: “Maybe he’s changed his mind; maybe he’s seen the Lord, but he seemed to want a sunset.”Despite vehement protests, Republicans have not yet said how they plan to reduce spending to meet their goal of putting the US on a path toward a balanced budget. Without touching those programs, which alone count for a substantial piece of the nation’s federal budget, it is unclear how they would meet that objective without making painful cuts to defense spending or raising taxes, options many Republicans have categorically ruled out.Biden has appeared to relish sparring with Republicans over the issue, which the White House has long seen as politically potent. Democrats tried to wield the issue against their opponents in the November midterms, but they struggled to rally voters against the hypothetical cuts despite a better-than-anticipated performance.Many Democrats now believe that changed on Tuesday, when Americans saw the debate unfold in primetime. Biden departed the House chamber confident he had bested his political foes, just as he intends to seek a second term. A formal announcement is expected sometime this spring.But recent opinion polls show Biden struggling to unite Americans behind his agenda, with few giving him credit for his legislative accomplishments. Most voters, including a majority of Democrats, say they would prefer someone else to be the party’s standard-bearer in 2024, though a primary challenge has become increasingly unlikely.With 2024 coming into focus, Biden brought his message to Florida, once the consummate presidential battleground that has slipped from Democrats’ reach in recent elections. It is also home to a large retiree population and two of the president’s potential 2024 Republican rivals: Donald Trump, who announced his candidacy shortly after the November midterms, and Florida’s governor, Ron DeSantis, who won re-election by a dominating 19 percentage points in November.The Guardian view on Biden’s State of the Union: deft politics – now to persuade voters | EditorialRead moreTargeting DeSantis, Biden called on the governor to expand Medicaid in the state, estimating an additional 1.1 million Floridians would be eligible for the program.“This isn’t calculus,” Biden said. “The only reason Medicare expansion hasn’t happened here is politics.” He also repeated his calls for Congress to raise taxes on the wealthiest households and corporations as well as to extend a $35 monthly cap on the cost of insulin to all Americans.In a statement ahead of Biden’s visit, Ronna McDaniel, chair of the Republican National Committee, said the president’s plans to rebuild the economy were “too blissfully out of touch to care”.The visit was the second stop on his post-State of the Union “blitz”, which has seen the president, vice-president and cabinet officials travel the country to promote his administration’s legislative agenda. His first stop was at a union training facility in Wisconsin.TopicsJoe BidenUS politicsFloridaUS MedicareRepublicansDemocratsnewsReuse this content More

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      Biden declared victory over big pharma – but is it enough to sway senior voters?

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      Biden declared victory over big pharma – but is it enough to sway senior voters?The Inflation Reduction Act aims to reduce the cost of drugs, but the law’s limitations may not help the Democrats in the midterms At a Labor Day speech in Milwaukee, Joe Biden declared nothing less than victory over the pharmaceutical industry.“We beat pharma!” Biden said, leaning into the microphone. “We beat pharma this year, and it mattered. We’re going to change people’s lives.”The president was referring to the August passage of the Inflation Reduction Act, which, among widely touted provisions to fight the climate crisis and tax big corporations, also aims to reduce prescription drug costs for seniors. The law allows Medicare to begin negotiating with pharmaceutical companies on some expensive drugs – a long-sought goal for activists and the key “victory” that Biden believes he has scored over the powerful pharmaceutical lobby.What Biden did not mention in his speech, however, was that the law also includes limits on those negotiations – meaning analysts believe it may be some time before the scorekeepers decide whether to declare Biden the winner.It also means that the Democrats could have difficulty using the accomplishment in their next big test, the midterm elections, where they hope to win over seniors – at least those who have not decided how they will vote.Biden’s landmark climate and spending bill – what’s in it, and what got cut?Read more“The impact on the election will be if you can convince people over age 60 that they really will be seeing something to help them with their drug costs,” said Robert Blendon, a professor of health policy and political analysis at Harvard University. “But if somebody tells them they are not going to see that until 2026, that’s not as exciting as ‘I really expect this year I’m going to get relief with the bills I have.’”The pharmaceutical part of the IRA law requires the federal government to start negotiating for some expensive drugs covered under Medicare – but not until 2026, and only with 10 retail prescription drugs that year, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. Another 15 retail drugs will be eligible for negotiation starting the following year, then 35 more in 2028 and 2029, including drugs administered by physicians.The act also requires pharmaceutical companies to pay rebates to Medicare if they increase drug prices faster than inflation; and, beginning in 2025, a $2,000 annual cap that means nobody on Medicare would have to pay more than that amount out of their own pocket.“Despite their limitations, the drug pricing reform provisions of the [act] have the potential to transform the ways in which Medicare pays for drugs, and to provide financial benefits to millions of seniors who have difficulty affording their medications,” Rachel Sachs, a Washington University law professor and expert in health law, wrote in Health Affairs.Biden has tried to make political hay out of the deal to reduce drug costs. He has called out his opponents for not supporting the measures, reminding listeners that all Republicans voted against the Inflation Reduction Act.“For decades, big pharma won – year in, year out – because they own chunks of the Congress – because they had help, like your senior senator, Ron Johnson,” Biden told the crowd in Wisconsin, referring to the Republican lawmaker who is up for re-election this year. Johnson’s opponent, the lieutenant governor of Wisconsin, Mandela Barnes, has also criticized the incumbent’s ties to the pharmaceutical industry.But recent polling indicates that despite the drug price “win”, the race is a toss-up. Democrats are favored to retain control of the Senate, but Republicans are favored to take control of the House, according to the most recent modeling from the FiveThirtyEight.Democrats’ struggles could be because voters are less concerned with the pharmaceutical industry than they are other issues. A majority of voters told a recent survey from Politico and Harvard that inflation, the economy and jobs, gun policy, abortion and gas prices all rank ahead of healthcare (at least non-Covid-19 healthcare) in the list of what will affect their decisions in the midterms.The Covid-19 pandemic and surrounding upheaval in recent years “has made people unbelievably short-term in how they think about the issues,” Blendon added.The number of drugs affected by the new law is also very limited. And since the requirements won’t immediately take effect, they could be reversed or softened by a Republican administration, said Simon Haeder, professor of public health at Texas A&M University.“We will really see if it’s a big deal maybe five, 10 years down the line, and the only way this turns into a big deal is if this is a nose or the toes in the door kind of thing and spurs larger changes,” said Haeder.Also, since the healthcare provisions are part of a wider law on climate and corporation taxes, voters may not be aware of what it does about drug prices specifically, Blendon said.Whit Ayres, a Republican pollster, argues the healthcare provisions will not make much difference in the midterms. The breakthrough on drug price negotiations will be “subsumed by other broader issues about inflation, crime, immigration, the future of democracy, education and broader healthcare issues that go well beyond the limited negotiation for a small number of drugs.”The key for Democrats in making sure that’s not the case, Blendon argues, is advertising.“If you were working in the White House, you want everything to try to highlight the drug price provisions, particularly in districts with older people,” he said. “If they are aware that something is being done for people over age 60, 65 for drug prices, it will help the Democrats.”AARP (formerly known as the American Association of Retired Persons) is trying to increase awareness of how the law could benefit people over 65, who are eligible for Medicare. The organization has published articles, held town hall meetings and devoted its September monthly bulletin to explaining the law.Leigh Purvis, the director of AARP’s healthcare costs and access, thinks the law could help Democrats with the delays in drug price negotiation requirements, because some parts of it – notably the rebates for inflation, and the cap on insulin payments – take effect next year.“This law is effectively starting very soon, and it’s just a matter of helping people see those changes and recognize them for what they are and what caused them,” Purvis said.TopicsUS politicsPharmaceuticals industryUS MedicarefeaturesReuse this content More

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      Why Medicare for All is a political headache: Politics Weekly Extra – podcast

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      The Guardian health reporter Jessica Glenza steps in for Jonathan Freedland this week. She speaks to Dr Abdul El-Sayed, co-author of a new book, Medicare for All: A Citizen’s Guide, about why the concept of providing healthcare coverage for all Americans is so politically vexing

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      No three words are likely to elicit a more divisive response in Washington than “Medicare for all”. From the outside looking in, some might wonder why any politician – Republican or Democrat – would hesitate to provide universal health coverage to all Americans. The answer goes to the core of American ideas about the role of government and the free market. This week Jessica Glenza speaks to Dr Abdul El-Sayed, a physician and epidemiologist and co-author of a new book, Medicare for All: A Citizen’s Guide. He also ran for governor of Michigan, where he advocated for universal healthcare. Send us your questions and feedback to podcasts@theguardian.com Help support the Guardian by going to gu.com/supportpodcasts More