Senate committee votes to advance Oz’s nomination for CMS administrator

ByAndrew (Drew) Rhoades

Fact checked byMindy Valcarcel, MS

Key takeaways:

The Senate Finance Committee advanced the nomination of Mehmet Oz, MD, MBA, for CMS administrator to the full senate.
Oz previously faced questions from senators on Medicaid budget cuts and DOGE.

The United States Senate Committee on Finance voted to advance the nomination of Mehmet Oz, MD, MBA, to be the next administrator of CMS.

Healio previously reported on Oz’s committee hearing, where he was grilled by senators on reigning in the U.S. Department of Government Efficiency, the utilization of AI in health care and addressing ongoing nursing shortages.

Generic Breaking News infographic — The Senate Finance Committee advanced the nomination of **Mehmet Oz, MD, MBA,** for CMS administrator to the full senate. *Image: Adobe Stock*

In his opening statement, Committee Chairman Mike Crapo, a Republican from Idaho, supported Oz’s nomination and said the surgeon’s background “makes him uniquely qualified to manage the intricacies of CMS."

“I was also encouraged to hear that he would focus on modernizing federal health care programs, work to fix our broken clinician payment system and will partner with Congress to achieve pharmaceutical benefit manager reform,” Crapo added.

Ranking Committee Member Ron Wyden, a Democrat from Oregon, opposed the nomination in his opening statement, highlighting Oz’s inability to give straight answers to several questions asked during and after the hearing.

“Dr. Oz was given the chance to ensure the people that he would not be a rubber stamp for Republican plans to gut Medicaid and heighten Affordable Care Act premiums. At every turn, he failed the test,” Wyden said. “When I asked him a yes or no question about whether he would protect Medicaid, he dodged, weaved and simply wouldn’t answer.”

The vote for Oz passed with 14 ayes and 13 nays, strictly along party lines.

Committees have advanced several other key figures nominated by the Trump administration for health care roles, including Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. as head of HHS, Jay Bhattacharya, MD, PhD, as NIH director and Martin Makary, MD, MPH, as FDA commissioner.