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Following the shrinking of Medicaid by President Donald Trump and the GOP’s so-called “Big Beautiful Bill,” Mehmet Oz, heart surgeon turned TV doctor turned Administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, says Americans will still be able to receive help — but that they need to stay healthy and avoid things like cake.
The new legislation could kick as many as 15 million people off Medicaid, the health insurance program for low-income and disabled Americans. The bill implements new work requirements mandating people work, go to school, or volunteer 80 hours a month. They can’t earn too much money, though, lest they exceed the income cap and get kicked off the program.
“We don’t even call it a work requirement, it’s community engagement,” Oz told Fox Business’ Stuart Varney on Monday. Oz claimed people are spending “6.1” hours a day watching TV.
In January, President Donald Trump promised to “love and cherish” Medicaid. Vice President J.D. Vance recently dismissed the prospect of millions losing coverage as “minutiae.”
Oz was reportedly an “enduring presence” in the effort to pass the bill.
“It was a promise to the American people to take care of you if you’re having problems financially or if you’re having an issue because you were older and needed health care,” Oz said. “It changed the country in a good way, for many reasons, but we’re all in it together, Stuart, which means we’ll be there for you, the American people, when you need help with Medicaid and Medicare.”
Then, he added a caveat: “But you’ve got to stay healthy, as well. Be vital. Do the most you can do to really live up to … your God-given potential to live a full and healthy life. Don’t eat carrot cake.”
He gestured to a carrot cake sitting on the table to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the founding of Medicaid.
“That’s what you’ve given me,” Varney said, laughing.
“This is a little bit of a wink, I was jokingly calling this the MAHA Medi-cake, but of course I couldn’t find a healthy cake, so I bought the closest they get, carrot cake.”
MAHA, or Make America Healthy Again, is Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s health project which includes avoiding things like seed oils and food dyes and questioning vaccines. In May, he released his first report, which cited fake studies and seemed to have been written using AI.
Oz also told Fox Business that he wants to make health care “productive.”“If we make health care function the way banks function, the way you can order food, the way you can watch streaming videos, transform it to be a 21st Century industry, it’ll become productive again. The loss of productivity is what hurts medicine,” he said.
Last month, Oz told Fox Business that Medicaid recipients have to “do something that shows you have agency over your future.”
“Go out there, do entry-level jobs, get into the workforce, prove that you matter. Get agency into your own life,” he said. “It’s a much more enjoyable experience if you go through life thinking you are in control of your destiny and you will get better insurance at the same time.”
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) noted the absurdity of Oz’s statement in an X post later on Monday. “17 million people are going to lose their health insurance because of the Trump administration,” she wrote. “Dr. Oz‘s advice is ‘don’t eat carrot cake.”
