Trump names 'TV show host' Oz as head of public health insurance

U.S. President-elect Donald Trump named Mehmet Oz as the head of the Health Insurance Service Center under the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

"The United States is facing a medical crisis," Trump said in a statement, adding that "no doctor would be more qualified and capable than Dr. Oz in making America healthy again."

The Health Insurance Service Center is a government organization responsible for public health insurance work such as medical support for the elderly and low-income people in the United States.

Oz is a medical expert who has been widely known to the public for hosting the "Doctor Oz Show," a TV program that deals with health information, for more than a decade since 2009.

Oz has since entered politics, running as a Republican in Pennsylvania's 2022 federal Senate race, before losing to Democratic candidate John Fetterman.

Trump said in a statement that he would "work closely with Robert Kennedy Jr. to confront the disease industry complex and all the terrible chronic diseases it has caused."

Trump has previously named Robert Kennedy Jr., a vaccine skeptic who helped him win the election, as secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Trump has signaled structural reforms to public health insurance spending, which accounts for about a quarter of the federal budget during the election.