CNN
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President-elect Donald Trump has appointed Dr. Mehmet Oz selected as administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

“I know Dr. Oz for many years, and I am confident he will fight to ensure everyone in America gets the best health care possible so our country can be great and healthy again!” Trump said this in a statement on Tuesday.

Oz, a cardiothoracic surgeon and television personality, unsuccessfully ran for Senate in Pennsylvania in 2022 with Trump’s support. He lost to the Democratic now-senator. Johannes Fetterman.

In 2018, Trump appointed Oz to the Presidential Council on Sports, Fitness and Nutrition, and reappointed him to the position in 2020.

Oz rose to fame as a frequent guest of Oprah Winfrey and eventually launched his own daytime TV talk show in 2009. Thanks to ‘The Dr. Oz Show,” which won several daytime Emmy awards and reached millions of viewers, Oz became one of the country’s best-known doctors.

However, his views on Covid-19 sparked controversy. For example, early in the pandemic, Oz talked about the antimalarial drug hydroxychloroquine as a way to treat the coronavirus — despite the lack of solid scientific evidence that it was an effective treatment.

While many of these perspectives were praised by Republicans at the time, before running for Senate, Oz regularly supported health insurance mandates and promoted Obamacare, CNN’s KFile reported, taking unusual positions for a Republican candidate.

For example, as a doctor, Oz advocated that everyone in America have insurance and said the government should provide health care coverage to Americans who cannot afford it. “It should be mandatory that everyone in America have health care coverage. If you can’t afford it, we should give it to you,” Oz told The Seattle Times in 2009.

Oz, an advocate of alternative medicines and treatments, has been trolled by the medical community for years. In 2015, a group of doctors at Columbia University wrote that they were “dismayed” that Oz was a member of the school’s faculty. And in 2014, Oz was berated by senators during a congressional hearing over his promotion of weight-loss products on his television show.

Oliver Darcy contributed to this report.

This story has been updated with additional information.