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Mehmet Oz has been tapped to lead the federal agency in charge of a $1.5 trillion budget and the health insurance coverage for more than 155 million Americans

Mehmet Oz, seen at a 2022 campaign rally, is President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator. Photo: AFP via Getty Images

The selection of television personality Dr. Mehmet Oz to run the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services could bring on budget cuts, the privatization of Medicare and reduced benefits for the nation’s most vulnerable citizens, public-health and government experts say.

CMS, the federal agency in charge of a $1.5 trillion budget and the health-insurance coverage for more than 155 million Americans, oversees Medicare, Medicaid, the Children’s Health Insurance Program and the Health Insurance Marketplace. If Oz is confirmed by the Senate, he would be responsible for a health agency that has about 6,500 employees.

Jessica Hall is a retirement reporter for MarketWatch. She was an Age Boom Academy Fellow with Columbia University and completed the Leadership Exchange on Ageism. She previously worked at Mainebiz, the Portland Press Herald and Maine Sunday Telegram, where she and her team earned a Scripps Howard Award for Community Journalism for a series on aging. She spent 17 years at Reuters, covering mergers and acquisitions, telecommunications and airlines. She started her career in Baltimore at The Daily Record and Baltimore Business Journal. She has freelanced for Barron’s and other publications.