Dr. Oz, Trump’s Nominee for Health Care, Says He ‘Cherishes’ Medicaid, but Declines To Commit To Opposing Cuts to the Program
The Senate confirmation hearing comes as Democrats are warning that Republicans will need to make deep cuts to entitlement programs to meet their spending reduction goals.
President Trump’s pick to lead the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Dr. Mehmet Oz, is not ruling out cuts to the programs.
During his confirmation hearing Friday, Mr. Oz said he would “cherish” Medicaid if he was confirmed. However, he was quickly challenged on whether he would oppose cuts to the program.
Senator Wyden of Oregon asked, “Yes or no, since you ‘cherish Medicaid,’ will you agree to oppose cuts to Medicaid?”
“I cherish Medicaid, and I worked within the Medicaid environment quite extensively,” Dr. Oz responded.
When Mr. Wyden interjected to try to force Dr. Oz to answer the question, the nominee said, “I want to make sure that the patients today [and] in the future have resources to protect them if they get ill. The way you protect Medicaid is by making sure that it’s viable at every level, which includes having enough practitioners, paying them enough to do what you request of them, and making sure that patients are actually able to use Medicaid.”
Mr. Wyden shot back, “Let the record show that I asked a witness who said he cherishes this program, ‘Will you agree to oppose cuts?’ And he would not answer a yes or no question.”
The question comes as Republicans are aiming to cut $1.5 trillion in spending over the next ten years, something critics say can only be done through deep cuts to programs such as Medicare and Medicaid.
The White House and Speaker Johnson insist that the cuts can be made by eliminating “waste and fraud” in government spending. On Monday, the leader of DOGE, Elon Musk, said he believes there is “maybe” as much as $700 billion a year that could be saved through cuts to what he says is wasteful or fraudulent spending in entitlement programs.
Democrats seized on that figure, which represents about 24 percent of the $2.9 trillion budget for entitlement programs, to suggest that Republicans would need to make significant cuts to them.
The White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, told reporters that Mr. Musk was talking about “the waste and the fraud and the abuse that does exist in these programs,” and insisted the “mainstream media has taken Mr. Musk out of context.” The White House also released documents that reiterated President Trump’s previous promises not to cut those programs.
