Dr. Oz spouts blatant lie when pressed on Medicaid cuts in Trump megabill

Mehmet Oz, who President Donald Trump tapped to lead the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, was confronted live Friday over past remarks about Medicaid cuts in the Republican budget bill, and when pressed, falsely suggested that the legislation would actually increase Medicaid funding rather than slash it.

In late April, Oz appeared on Fox News with "America’s Newsroom" host Bill Hemmer, where he was asked to comment on critics of Trump’s budget reconciliation package known as the One Big Beautiful Bill and its potential cuts to Medicaid. Oz avoided giving a direct answer, but argued that the bill was designed to “love and cherish,” as Trump put it, Medicaid.

Appearing again with Hemmer on Friday, Oz was asked to comment on his past remarks, now in the wake of studies that suggest the OBBBA will slash Medicaid funding by around $1 trillion over 10 years, and lead to as many as 16 million people losing coverage by 2034.

“Just to address whether we’re cutting Medicaid or not, we’re putting $200 billion more into Medicaid, more money is going into the program to help our young who are born into poverty, to help seniors who are struggling and the folks with disabilities,” Oz said.

“The best part of this bill, without question, is it’s challenging us to go forward and make a better system that works for all Americans, not just accept and tolerate the mediocrity that exists in the old programs that we have funded.”

It is unclear what Oz was referring to when claiming there to be an additional $200 billion being allocated toward Medicaid, though he may have been alluding to overall Medicaid spending, which will continue to rise year over year despite the budget bill’s projected $1 trillion in cuts over the next decade.

Oz was also confronted on whether the budget bill would see millions lose health insurance, noting the claims by several top Democrats, as well as Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC), who broke with Trump on the OBBBA over its cuts to Medicaid.

“Whether it’s Tillis or the Democrats, are they right about this?” Hemmer asked Oz. “You’ve got 80 million Americans on Medicaid, and some predict over the next 10 years maybe eight million lose their insurance. What would you say to that, doctor?”

While Oz didn’t flat out reject the idea that millions of Americans would lose coverage, he did downplay the numbers, saying he didn’t believe it would be as high as eight million losing health care, a projection already far below the 16 million projection from the Congressional Budget Office.

“I don’t believe we’re going to have that number of folks lose their insurance, but more importantly, I think we’ve taken steps as the president outlined that allow Medicaid to thrive,” Oz said. “The reason I took this job, I’m a heart surgeon, I spent my life taking care of folks, many individuals that did not have full insurance who were on Medicaid, so I know those challenges.”

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