Dr. Mehmet Oz

Mehmet Cengiz Oz was born June 11, 1960, in Cleveland, Ohio, to Turkish immigrant parents. He earned his undergraduate degree in biology from Harvard University, then a joint M.D. and M.B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and the Wharton School. He completed a residency in general and cardiothoracic surgery at Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center in New York, where he later spent much of his clinical career.

Oz built a national reputation in the 1990s and 2000s as a cardiothoracic surgeon at NewYork-Presbyterian / Columbia University Medical Center, specializing in heart transplantation, mitral-valve surgery, and the development of circulatory-assist devices. He held a professorship at Columbia and directed the Cardiovascular Institute and Complementary Medicine Program at the hospital.

His television career began with repeated guest spots on The Oprah Winfrey Show. In 2009 he launched The Dr. Oz Show, which ran for thirteen seasons and made him one of the most recognizable doctors in American popular culture. The show’s mixed record on evidence-based medicine and complementary therapies drew both a large audience and sustained criticism from the medical establishment.

In 2021 Oz entered the Republican primary for the open U.S. Senate seat in Pennsylvania, winning the nomination in 2022 before losing the general election to Democrat John Fetterman. He remained a prominent Trump ally through the 2024 campaign.

On November 19, 2024, President-elect Trump announced Oz as his nominee to lead the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services — the agency that administers the two largest federal health-insurance programs and sets payment rates that shape nearly every corner of the U.S. healthcare economy. The Senate confirmed him on April 3, 2025 by a vote of 53 to 45. He took office on April 8, 2025, and was ceremonially sworn in by President Trump on April 18, 2025.

As CMS Administrator, Oz’s purview covers Medicare, Medicaid, the Children’s Health Insurance Program, and the ACA marketplaces. Early-tenure priorities he has signaled publicly include preventive-care incentives inside Medicare Advantage, an emphasis on wellness and lifestyle intervention as covered benefits, and review of prior-authorization and billing-rule complexity.

His current battles include coordinating with the HHS Secretary’s office on the MAHA-aligned chronic-disease agenda, navigating provider-industry pushback on any Medicare payment reform, and managing congressional oversight of CMS rulemaking.

Open questions: whether Oz’s wellness and preventive-care framing survives contact with CMS’s actuarial and budget constraints, how his television-era positions on specific supplements and interventions interact with the agency’s coverage-determination process, and how he coordinates with the FDA under Makary on any products CMS is asked to cover.