Trump’s nomination put Mehmet Oz back in the political spotlight — and on track to oversee health care for more than 160 million Americans

Mehmet Oz stood in front of a camera in July and filmed a TikTok about “how to conquer your constipation.”

“Here’s the scoop on the poop brain loop,” Oz said confidently, delving into an enthusiastic pitch for probiotic supplements to keep you regular.

In the two years since losing his 2022 Senate bid to Democrat John Fetterman — a race Oz poured more than $27 million of his own money into — he’s largely been off the political radar, hawking vitamins as the global ambassador to the vitamin retailer iHerb on social media.

Now he’s back, and on track to become the man in charge of health care for 160 million Americans as President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee to run the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, also known as CMS.

“America is facing a Healthcare Crisis, and there may be no Physician more qualified and capable than Dr. Oz to Make America Healthy Again,” Trump said in a statement announcing Oz as his pick. He claimed Oz would take on the “illness industrial complex” and promote disease prevention.

» READ MORE: Trump taps Mehmet Oz to head office in charge of Medicare, Medicaid, and the Affordable Care Act

To get there, Oz, a cardiologist and former television personality who has lived in New Jersey for decades and also owns property in Pennsylvania, will face hearings bound to re-air some of the reputation-damaging details that sank his Senate run. Oz will likely face questions about comments he has made related to private and public health insurance, as well as scrutiny over his financial interests in pharmaceutical and medical companies.

But with a four-seat Republican majority in the Senate and a cadre of more controversial nominees, Oz’s nomination might not be highly contested, setting him up for a political revival.

“He is a very smart guy. He’s a thoughtful guy. … I think he has all the potential to be an excellent administrator for the CMS,” said former Pennsylvania Sen. Pat Toomey, a Republican who got to know Oz during his run to replace Toomey in 2022.

“He’ll want to articulate a vision for the direction that he believes the president wants him to carry out at CMS, and then, of course, he’ll want to be prepared for hostile questions about his past, which is always a part of the hearing process.”

Some of those questions have already started.

As soon as Oz was introduced as Trump’s pick, Democrats and some nonpartisan medical professionals blasted the nomination. Key Democratic senators, led by Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, sent a letter to Oz last month questioning his “previous advocacy for Medicare privatization” — referring to his call in 2020 for putting all seniors into private insurance plans under Medicare Advantage.

“In the wake of that nomination, we write regarding our concerns about your advocacy for the elimination of Traditional Medicare and your deep financial ties to private health insurers,” the letter read.

The criticism stems from a 2020 proposal by Oz and former Kaiser Permanente CEO George Halvorson, who in a piece published in Forbes suggested enrolling all Americans over 65 who were not in Medicaid into privately administered Medicare Advantage plans.

They framed the proposal as a way to provide universal coverage through the private sector, as opposed to expanding Medicare for all.

“Private insurers that run the Medicare Advantage program drastically overcharge for care,” the senators wrote in the letter to Oz, citing analysis from the nonpartisan Medicare Payment Advisory Committee.

As a Senate candidate in 2022, Oz continued to call for the expansion of Medicare Advantage, but he stopped short of calling for the elimination of traditional Medicare during the campaign.

The lawmakers in the letter also raised Oz’s financial interests in UnitedHealth, the largest private insurer in Medicare Advantage, as a conflict of interest and asked whether he would divest from any financial holdings related to the insurance industry if he is confirmed to the post.

“Dr. Oz will be working with the Office of Government Ethics and the agency’s ethics designee just as every other nominee,” Nick Clemens, a Trump-JD Vance transition spokesperson for Oz, said.

Brian Hughes, another Trump-Vance transition spokesperson, added that “all nominees and appointees will comply with the ethical obligations of their respective agencies.”

Previously, Trump’s transition team said Oz would stop promoting supplements if confirmed as CMS administrator.

CMS’s primary portfolio includes Medicare, Medicaid, and the Affordable Care Act Exchange, which sells subsidized coverage.

Medicare covers more than 2.9 million seniors and disabled residents in Pennsylvania, while Medicaid and CHIP provide health and long-term care coverage to 3.1 million low-income children, pregnant women, adults, seniors, and people with disabilities in the state. In all, these programs cover more than 38% of the state’s population.

If they are both confirmed, Oz would work under Trump’s health and human services nominee, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who is facing his own backlash over comments he has made against vaccines.

Oz, 64, the son of Turkish immigrants, and a dual citizen of the U.S. and Turkey, was born in Cleveland and raised in Wilmington. He graduated from Harvard University and the University of Pennsylvania.

A renowned heart surgeon, Oz has also invented medical devices and became a daytime TV fixture after being featured on The Oprah Winfrey Show.

He became a front-runner in the crowded 2022 GOP primary, where he was endorsed by Trump and bombarded by tens of millions of dollars in attack ads, featuring some topics that might resurface during his confirmation hearing.

He has faced criticism for comments he’s made over dozens of years on TV about questionable treatments. A 2014 study found fewer than half the claims he made on his TV show were supported by evidence. Other critics have circulated a Fox News appearance from early in the COVID-19 pandemic when Oz called for reopening schools despite the rise in mortality he predicted would result.

His popular television program, The Dr. Oz Show, sometimes promoted well-accepted health advice — he once hosted a renowned scientist to debunk the myth that the mRNA COVID-19 vaccine alters human DNA.

But other times, he used his platform to offer misleading — or downright untrue — medical advice.

Oz was among the medical experts to tout hydroxychloroquine, the malaria drug pushed by Trump during his first term as a treatment for COVID-19, despite insufficient evidence. Oz featured several products on his show purported to “melt belly fat” with little evidence they work. In 2014, he was hauled into a U.S. Senate panel hearing to address his claims that green coffee extract was a “miracle” weight-loss supplement.

Sen. Ron Wyden (D., Ore.), who is expected to be the ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee when it holds Oz’s confirmation hearing next year, is one of a small handful of Senate Democrats who have publicly criticized the celebrity doctor.

“Dr. Oz is no stranger to peddling nonsense to innocent Americans without facing consequences,” Wyden said. “Americans deserve a leader at CMS who will stand up to Big Pharma and insurance fraudsters who are misleading seniors and denying them essential health care, and I’m not sure a talk-show host is up for the fight.”

But in the company of more controversial nominees — like TV presenter and former Army National Guard officer Pete Hegseth, Trump’s pick for secretary of defense — Oz might not be in for a highly contested nomination.

In fact, even Fetterman left the door open to supporting Oz, despite the vitriol between the men that defined the 2022 race.

As former staffers for Fetterman’s campaign slammed their old boss’ embrace of Oz as Trump’s pick, Fetterman said he’s open to backing Oz — as long as he preserves Medicare.

“Our politics are obviously different, and we do have a history, but I don’t have any bitterness,” Fetterman told CNN. “I don’t hold anything against him.”

For Oz, a former TV celebrity, leading CMS would be a pretty technical and unglamorous post. The role is hugely important, but tends to go unnoticed — few people outside government could name the current CMS administrator. And the mandate is largely to carry out the vision of the administration.

But some of Oz’s supporters, like his former GOP Senate opponent Jeff Bartos, said the fact that the celebrity doctor wants the behind-the-scenes job is “inspiring.”

“If you look at this as an arc, he was at the top of his profession in medicine, the top of his profession in television in media. He almost got to the highest level of politics,” Bartos said. “… He really could be doing anything, and he’s doing this.”