White House Sends Dr. Oz To Calm Senate Nerves

The Senate Republican megabill is ailing. The White House thinks it has a doctor for that.

Dr. Mehmet Oz, the celebrity surgeon best known for dispensing medical advice on television and now a top Trump health official, has emerged as the administration’s go-to salesman for the sweeping Medicaid overhaul at the center of the GOP’s legislative ambitions.

Oz is increasingly pressing Republicans to back controversial cuts to the health program for low-income Americans, trekking to Capitol Hill several times in recent weeks to push for their support. He’s privately counseled Republican senators and governors nervous over the potential fallout for their home states, and publicly promoted the far-reaching changes in a flurry of interviews.

And as the White House and Congress race to meet a self-imposed July 4 deadline to pass the legislation, officials are betting that Oz’s medical credentials — and his personal star power — can convince Republicans and their constituents to embrace the legislation despite warnings it will cost millions of people their health care coverage.

"The more he can be out talking to members, and just in general, about the changes we're making and why they're so important and good is very helpful," said Sen. John Hoeven (R-N.D.), who has urged senior White House aides to deploy Oz more frequently in the coming days. "We think we've put together a good product, but there's others that we're still working to get on board."

The megabill push represents the most visible role Oz has taken since joining the administration in April as Medicaid and Medicare chief, where he oversees an agency responsible for more than 160 million Americans’ health care despite having little government or policymaking experience.

It’s also perhaps the toughest sales job of his career, requiring Oz to sway skeptical Republicans in favor of policies that are projected to eliminate health insurance for 16 million people — many of whom live in red states.

Several Republicans remain wary of provisions that could cut insurance coverage and upend the finances of hospitals in their states. They've bristled at the efforts by Oz and others to downplay the tax-and-spending bill's implications, threatening to withhold their votes over worries it would decimate access to care where it's most needed.

"Our goal here needs to be to protect rural hospitals and make sure that they can keep their doors open," said Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), one of a handful of holdouts who has expressed reservations about the depth of the Medicaid cuts.

At the same time, a separate GOP faction has demanded deeper cuts to government spending, with some taking their case this week directly to President Donald Trump. And among the public, polls show only a small minority of Americans support the overall bill.

The White House is nevertheless counting on Oz to play a central role in building support for the legislation, calculating that he has both the health care background and the bedside manner to assuage lawmakers' policy concerns.

A cardiothoracic surgeon by training, Oz became a daytime television fixture first as a health expert for The Oprah Winfrey Show before helming his own health and wellness show for more than a decade. A longtime Trump friend who frequently speaks with the president, the 65 year old has also maintained close ties to some Republican senators from his own failed run for office just a few years ago.

On Monday, Oz met with Senate Republican chiefs of staff to push for a decision on a so-called provider tax provision that has proven particularly politically divisive, while also trying to dissuade them from seeking new, deeper Medicaid cuts. The session followed an appearance last week at GOP senators' group lunch to pitch the merits of the bill's health care provisions.

“He’s a very big asset in getting us across the finish line,” said a White House official, granted anonymity to discuss internal strategy. “He has a lot of credibility to go into these lawmaker discussions, to talk to them and hear concerns out and then give the administration’s viewpoint."

Within the administration, Oz helped shape the White House's public messaging on Medicaid, at various points blaming "lots of lobbyists" for fueling criticism of the bill, while downplaying its impact on health coverage across a series of television interviews — even amid nonpartisan projections that hundreds of billions of dollars would be cut from the safety net program.

“There is no scenario, not in this bill, not in anywhere I’ve seen, where we’re not spending more money on Medicaid,” Oz said in a recent Newsmax interview.

Those aggressive performances have won praise among Trump officials, who dispatched him at times to help lawmakers and other allies workshop their own talking points. The work has also raised Oz's standing in the White House, where senior aides have been impressed by what two White House officials familiar with the dynamics and granted anonymity to discuss them described as his willingness to be a team player in government after decades as a high-profile celebrity.

"For over a decade, Dr. Oz developed a personal rapport with millions of Americans who tuned into his iconic TV show about health and wellness," White House spokesman Kush Desai said in a statement, adding that as CMS administrator he's "leveraging the immense intellect and telegenic charm he used to build that following to now help President Trump deliver on his mandate of protecting and preserving Medicaid by slashing waste, fraud, and abuse.”

Yet as the megabill hits the home stretch, the persistent divide among Republican lawmakers has also exposed the limits of his salesmanship. Despite overseeing the Medicaid program and facing the task of enacting whatever policy is signed into law, Oz — barely three months into his first government job — has had little direct control over the specifics of the policy negotiations. Those details have instead been coordinated largely between White House domestic policy aides and Republican leaders on the Hill.

Hawley — who briefly raised concerns about Oz during his confirmation process over the surgeon’s past support for gender-affirming care — on Tuesday said he hasn’t talked with Oz about his Medicaid concerns and saw little value in meeting with him. “He’s not the decisionmaker,” he said. “The president is.”

That distance has limited his ability to win over skeptics across the health care industry, including hospital groups that have been particularly outspoken in drumming up concerns about the bill's impact on Medicaid.

In one private meeting with hospital representatives earlier this month, Oz listened as they detailed the sprawling financial consequences for providers should Republicans forge ahead with major changes to Medicaid, according to a person in the room. But he had little to offer in response, insisting primarily that the GOP needed to find ways to limit the government's health spending.

"I don't know what he believes," said the person, who was granted anonymity to detail the closed-door discussion. "He's a real bright guy and everything, but he doesn't have control of the policy."

Oz now faces an even trickier situation with the politically delicate provider tax that's divided Republicans on the Hill, jeopardizing the race to the party's July 4 deadline. After Senate lawmakers debuted a deeper funding cut than what Republicans proposed in the House, Oz publicly defended the effort, blasting the existing arrangements between states and hospitals as a form of "legalized money laundering" that the administration needs to remedy, and breaking with Hawley and other GOP skeptics.

"I would disagree that that money goes to rural hospitals," Oz said in a CNN appearance. "The reality is that extra money that's left over goes to hospitals that are better connected, the hospitals with the biggest lobbyists and the best ability to influence what happens in the state capitals."

Yet behind closed doors days later, Oz struck a more measured note, nudging Senate GOP staffers instead to stick to the language laid out by the House.

"He is a really gifted communicator," said Avik Roy, chair of the Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity and a longtime conservative policy expert. "He may exceed people's expectations. But obviously what matters to some degree is what the policy is. And is the policy something that ordinary people are going to buy as a good policy?"