Poop explainer Dr. Oz nominated to run Medicare and Medicaid

Open up and say, “Oz,” America. President-elect Donald Trump has nominated yet another television personality to his cabinet of alleged sex pests, quacks, and billionaires desperate for people to think they’re funny. Dr. Mehmet Oz, best known for determining what color poop is best for the average Oprah viewer, pushing phony weight-loss treatments, and falsely claiming apple juice has arsenic in it, has been tapped to run the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Trump promises that he “will fight to ensure everyone in America receives the best possible Healthcare, so our Country can be Great and Healthy Again!”

Since rising to prominence via Oprah Winfrey’s tireless quest to foist shitty health advice on her viewers, Oz hasn’t proven a dependable healthcare professional. One could point to any moment across his illustrious career, from optimistically suggesting that reopening schools a month into the pandemic “may only cost us 2 to 3 percent in terms of total mortality” to being an early proponent of hydroxychloroquine as a COVID treatment. Shortly after, he ran a failed senatorial campaign, during which a 2012 episode of Dr. Oz focused on conversion therapy was mysteriously scrubbed from his website. Thanks, Oprah.

But don’t take our word for it. In 2015, a group of nationally renowned doctors called for Oz’s dismissal as vice chairman of Columbia University’s Department of Surgery in an open letter to the university. Dr. Henry Miller of Stanford, the first to sign the letter, said, “He’s a quack and a fake and a charlatan.”

“I think I know the motivation at Columbia,” he continued. “They’re star-struck and like having on their faculty the best-known doctor in the country. But the fact is that his advice endangers patients, and this doesn’t seem to faze them. Whether they’re hoping Oprah will come and endow a center for homeopathic medicine, I don’t know.”

Luckily, given how much House Speaker Mike Johnson has pushed for Social Security and Medicaid reforms, including such initiatives as raising the retirement age, Oz might not have much of a kingdom to preside over. After Johnson announced that he promised to form a bipartisan debt commission to eliminate “the greatest threat to national security,” many, including the Biden administration, voiced concern that Johnson wanted to “gut Social Security and Medicare” to reduce the national debt. Though this would be disastrous for the 10s of millions of Americans who rely on these programs, it might be what the doctor ordered. Once more, for the people about to lose their coverage in the back: Thanks, Oprah.