TV personality and former surgeon Dr. Mehmet Oz is one step closer to leading the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services after the Senate Finance Committee advanced his nomination to the floor on a party line vote, 14-13.
Democrats slammed Oz for not committing to stop potential GOP cuts to Medicaid, as well as his previous support for Medicare Advantage plans and privatizing Medicare.
During his hearing, Oz dodged many specific questions and instead spoke in generalities about how he wants to make Americans healthier and improve the efficiency of the health system.
Finance Committee Ranking Member Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) said Oz's refusal to answer direct questions was a problem.
"During his confirmation hearing, Dr. Oz was given the chance to assure the American people that he would not be a rubber stamp for Republicans' plans to gut Medicaid and hike ACA premiums. At every turn, he failed the test. When I asked him a yes or no question about whether he would protect Medicaid, he dodged and weaved and refused to answer," Wyden said Tuesday ahead of the vote.
Later Tuesday, the Senate confirmed Stanford health economist Jay Bhattacharya 53-47 as leader of the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
Bhattacharya's confirmation was the final step in a comeback for the man who became a pandemic celebrity for his opposition to government health mandates and said he was ostracized from the scientific establishment for his views.
Bhattacharya was one of the primary authors of the Great Barrington Declaration, a document signed by thousands of public health experts in late 2020 that pushed the argument of "herd immunity;" allowing the virus to spread among lower-risk, younger people to build up immunity while having "focused protection" on older, higher-risk people.
Bhattacharya indicated he will run the NIH in a way that embraces scientific dissent — even in cases where numerous studies have shown the science is settled, like a debunked link between the measles shot and autism.
Another COVID-19 policy critic, Marty Makary, is slated for a confirmation vote late Tuesday night.
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