The Trump administration is putting $200 billion into Medicaid in hopes of saving the "beautiful program," Dr. Mehmet Oz, the administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, said Sunday.
"There's been a 50% increase in the cost of Medicaid over the last five years, so I'm trying to save this beautiful program, this noble effort, to help folks, giving them a hand up," Oz said on CBS' "Face the Nation."
"If Medicaid isn't able to take care of the people for whom it was designed, the young children, in the dawn of their life, those who are in the twilight of their life, the seniors and those who are disabled living in the shadows, as Hubert Humphrey said, then we're not satisfying the fundamental obligation of a moral government."
So the government will invest in the program, said Oz, but "we want an appropriate return on that investment," and that means Medicaid patients shouldn't face drug prices they can't afford.
President Donald Trump has put a 25% tariff on India, and his trade deal with the EU added a 15% tariff on imported medicine from Europe, but he's calling for most-favored-nation pricing on medication.
"About two-thirds of bankruptcies in America are caused by health care expenses," said Dr. Oz. "About a third of people, when they go to the pharmacy, they leave empty-handed. They can't afford the medication."
Trump has determined that Americans should not be paying three times more for the same medicine than other countries pay, he added.
"The president's saying, equalize it out," he said. "Let's use a model that's worked, for example, for external threats; that's what NATO did. Everyone has to pay a little more. We'll pay extra too, but we won't pay a lot more than everybody else. ... That way more Americans can afford these medications."
Dr. Oz added that the pharmaceutical companies "understand the reality of this problem" and are negotiating with the federal government.
Meanwhile, part of the president's One Big Beautiful Bill will require able-bodied Medicaid recipients to work 80 hours a month. That could involve community engagement, going to school, or taking care of family members, said Oz.
"Work is a great way of doing and getting you out of poverty if you can find jobs and elevate yourself," he said. "There have been efforts to do this in the past, but they haven't been able to achieve what we can achieve."
Technology will help recipients show they're working, said Oz.
"What if we go beyond just proving that you tried the work to actually say, 'You know what, you didn't work enough, but we can actually help you by connecting you through an employment office?'" he said.
The new rules won't come into play until December 2026.
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.