Press Briefing: Mehmet Oz Holds a Press Briefing at The White House - June 2, 2026

Good afternoon, everybody. Feel like I'm talking to a classroom. I've got a couple of announcements, then I'd love to take some questions for you. When the president came in for this term, he commented on how challenging it had been to deal with the affordability crisis in pharmaceutical medications, often commenting on the fact that he'd been able to reduce the price by one eighth of 1 percent or 1 point in the first administration.

And he thought that was a massive achievement because it's usually just skyrocketing. And it's an important issue for a lot of folks in America, because almost one in three Americans, when they go to a pharmacy to pick up a medication that their doctors prescribe for them, leaves empty handed because they can't afford the medication, especially for branded products.

And part of the reason for this, it's unknown to a lot of Americans, but is well recognized by the president and this administration, is that our drug prices are about three times higher on average than the same drugs made in the same facilities in the same American factories often times than they are charging patients overseas in Europe, Asia and other parts of the world.

It's global freeloading; it's wrong. The president demanded that we change it and, as most of you know, we spent much of last year negotiating with the 17 largest pharmaceutical companies that drive over 80 percent of the entire business in branded pharmaceuticals. And every single one of them agreed to a Most Favored Nation drug pricing strategy, which, simply stated, means that these medications, especially going into the future, will be priced at the same amount as the rest of the world.

It doesn't mean price fixing. We're not telling pharmaceutical companies what to charge. We're saying to them, whatever you charge us, you've got to charge the other folks, which means we might be able to help you overseas to get better pricing so that you can make up some of the losses that you'll experience here.

The Council of Economic Advisers estimated that the benefit of the president's negotiated program is about $600 billion over the next 10 years -- $600 billion in savings. The question then becomes; how do you actually get that savings to the American people? And we worked together with some wonderful folks, George Edmead, Ed Coristine who have been building the TrumpRx.gov site.

And I've got an announcement that today we are adding 160 more drugs to this site. Now, the site already has 700 or so -- or 600 or so drugs, so it's going to take it over 750 total, but that is an important number for other reasons. It means that four out of five medications that are picked up by Americans going into that same drugstore that I mentioned earlier, now have the opportunity to double check that the price they're getting in that drugstore or wherever they're buying it from is the best price out there.

So, it's a transparency site. It gives everybody the ability to make important decisions about medications they're purchasing with full knowledge of what the cost of those medications are. And that's important because transparency drives cost effective changes in how we procure and consume products. You would never buy a car without knowing the cost of the car.

Some of these medications cost what a car costs. And so, these are important assets for the American people to have. I'll put some numbers on this. In the two weeks since we did the last event with the president on this topic, we're now up to about 12 million unique visitors to the site. Estimated savings are about $500 million and, again, climbing rapidly as more Americans learn about the program.

And it is our great hope and belief that the average American, before they make a purchasing decision for a pharmaceutical product, will start using TrumpRx.gov as a standard, as a baseline to take advantage of something that's been given to you. There's no money made from this site. The government does not charge money to people using this site; it's an opportunity for you to be in power.

That stated, I want to add to that one additional insight that some of you would like to hear, which is that starting on July 1st, the patients on -- beneficiaries on Medicare who are eligible for GLP products, the weight loss products that the president speaks of frequently, will be allowed to obtain those products for $50 a month.

Now, the list price, as you know, for a lot of these drugs, is well over $1,000 a month. We've been working hard to push down on these prices to make sure that these medications, which can be life changing and even lifesaving because of their impact on weight loss and downstream complications like diabetes and hypertension and all the things that they cause, like kidney failure and heart disease and strokes and dementia, even cancers.

All those risk factors are going to be mitigated, we believe, if these medications are used correctly. And so, when doctors prescribe them, Medicare beneficiaries will be able to obtain them for $50 a month. And we are hopeful that over the next few years, we will show an actual savings to the American taxpayer if these medications are used correctly and appropriately and consistently so folks get the weight loss they desire with the downstream benefits that I mentioned earlier.

I also want to touch briefly on the crushing of fraud, waste, and abuse made possible by the vice president's anti-fraud task force. The White House task force has been aggressively going after an all-of-government approach. I'll speak personally as the person charged with the Medicare and Medicaid services.

When we identify, by looking at the data, which we have plenty of, that there's an aberrancy in how these bills are coming in to us, so there might be fraud there, it's incredibly empowering for us to quickly call the Office of Inspector General or the FBI, the Department of Justice, and to have Todd Blanche call back and say, here's what we're going to do about what you just observed.

Or call Scott Bessent at Treasury and say we need forensic accounting, something is going on here, where are they hiding the money. And I want to emphasize that this is sophisticated work, because our opponents are extraordinarily sophisticated in their attacks on our system. They just need to have a Medicare beneficiary number or some other ID, which is basically a credit card, and they can begin charging against the federal tax dollars that go into Medicare and Medicaid.

That's one of the reasons we're seeing such high amounts of fraud in different parts of the country. And we believe there are organized criminal groups behind some of these endeavors. So, I want to walk you through a couple of these examples, because our goal is to stop the money from ever leaving the building.

That is the best way to protect the American taxpayer. As you know, we were in Minnesota last week where the largest autism takedown occurred, a mother and a daughter, adult daughter, were accused of tens of millions of dollars of theft. And just to put this in perspective, the reason these are so important is if you defraud the system, you don't just take money out of the system.

People steal your money -- money from our most vulnerable Americans are going to steal their health, they'll steal their life. And that's what we've been seeing in some of these takedowns. Unfortunately, when these events don't happen in a timely fashion, you lose the whole program. So, in Minnesota, the state itself stopped non-emergency medical transportation, which is when you need someone to take you to a doctor's appointment.

They cut the whole program, it's gone, it's finished, because they could not deal with the fraud. It went from an estimated $1 billion a year, how much did it cost to take a car to a doctor's office, to over $100 million a year? So, they killed the program. And that, of course, we believe, because it doesn't provide the kind of care we desire for our fellow Americans, can be problematic.

We don't want that to happen in other endeavors as well. So, we've been working with the state of Minnesota. We're not happy with some of the things we've been encountering as we look at their receipts on the services they provided, which is why we deferred $350 million to the state of Minnesota, and we're waiting to hear feedback from them.

Other states have also been problematic, California comes to mind, where we've made several trips of late. One-third of all of the hospice in the entire country. And hospice is as precious, beautiful program built in the 80s to take care of people with dignity in the last months of their life. Classically, someone has metastatic cancer, they're going to die, it's going to happen in a few months.

You give up your Medicare because why would you want Medicare?

You don't need all those things. Take hospice instead. But that trade has risks with it if you don't actually have a lethal problem. And when one third of all hospices in the entire country are in Los Angeles, not even California, in Los Angeles, that creates issues. First of all, it's not plausible, but it also means someone's been ignoring the problem.

And in fact, there was a call four years ago by the state auditor in California to address these problems. It was not managed, so our agency has now suspended payments to 850. Almost half of all hospices in California now have been suspended, but they're no longer being paid. And we're going to keep aggressively going at this problem, because when we go after hospice in California, guess what happens?

Hospice Nevada went up Sevenfold Hospice in Arizona, hospice in Texas, they've all gone up. These scoundrels run to other areas. I just learned this morning now they're infiltrating the home health care space in California, which is equally a problem because now they're taking advantage of a different sector of the population, this time Medicaid, but using nefarious techniques and technologies to do that as well.

And again, these are organized criminal syndicates we believe, in many instances. And that's why being a personal care service attendant, which is, again, doing something that your family would normally do for you, carrying groceries upstairs, driving you somewhere, that job is now, by twofold, the most common job in California.

And it's the most common job in New York. Again, this defies belief that you could get that much growth in single sectors, but these are well paid jobs that have become now ubiquitously available. There has not been strong guardrails. The last administration did not think that this was an important endpoint.

The endpoint was enrolling people and getting people onto these different programs and that has led to a tremendous opportunity for corrupting the system and that's what we're witnessing. With that in mind, there's lots we can do to fix these problems. We've been aggressively going after states, red and blue.

We wrote a letter to Florida. The difference, by the way, was Florida responded by saying, we know we have a problem, we're going to double down, we want a moratorium on all of our durable medical equipment suppliers. And why, because there are twice as many durable medical equipment suppliers in South Florida than McDonald's. Again, not really possible unless you're looking the other way.

We're not looking the other way. We're aggressively taking on these challenges. And I'm going to reemphasize something that I'm hoping everyone appreciates, but if you're defrauding our most vulnerable citizens in America, do not walk away from this threat, run away from us because we're coming after you.

All right. I've got -- I've got -- give me one second. I've got -- I was I was actually given a cheat sheet, which you all know I got. Shelby, the new -- new media, take it away.

Thanks. I actually wanted to ask about that nationwide moratorium. Industry groups are really concerned about growth and employment getting hurt if that moratorium expands beyond six months. Would you rule out an extension of that moratorium, or do you expect that it's going to be expanded?

I'm not going to rule out an extension. We have been talking to industry groups about these moratorium. In fact, this is for everybody, watching all of you as well, we benefit from whistle blowers. Our most important whistle blowers have been members of industry who know the game, know how you can cheat it if you're unethical and they point out to us when these problems occur.

So we do not want to hurt the folks who are earnestly involved in hospice, in durable medical equipment suppliers, personal care services. There are good people in these businesses, but we're going to slow down the growth of these sectors so we can get our arms around the problem, because it is of massive magnitude to us. Let me go to -- let's go over here.

Go ahead.

Dr. Oz, thank you so much. Cara Castronuova from Lindell TV with two important questions that the American people voted for and care deeply about. Many Americans fear a future administration could reinstate COVID-era vaccine mandates through Medicare and Medicaid funding. Would you support and create reforms to prevent that from happening again?

What can you do during your remaining time at CMS to ensure Americans are never forced to choose between their jobs and, of course, vaccination?

Well, the president talked about this a bit on Friday with an executive order that desires to provide states with better science to be able to make educated decisions. It is -- it is an embarrassment that during COVID, we allowed ideology and fear to dictate health care policy. Many clinicians at the time couldn't understand where these ideas were coming from.

It certainly soured the American people on the trust that their government had historically had in recommending public policy efforts. The president argues, and he's right, and Secretary Kennedy strongly believes we need gold-standard science. We need that science to be able to help families make better decisions for themselves and state governments, because these are state-driven issues, usually, especially mandates, to make those decisions more wisely.

If you can do this in the right way, it will be very empowering. Because who loves children the most, their parents. No matter what we might say, they're the ones who need to have the information they should have the ability to make the wisest choices for their kids, not based on fear, but based in science.

Stephen.

One more on nursing homes, Dr. Oz.

Let me go one at a time. If you ask multiple questions, I only can answer one anyway, so we'll come back. I promise. I talk quickly. Go ahead.

Dr. Oz, thank you. And I actually have two but, you know, we see what you like.

I'll answer one. Pick one.

Well, the first is on most favored nations, the policy. I was hoping that you could explain why the administration thinks it's important to pass legislation codifying these deals. Is the fear that a future president might walk away, um, and what do you make of the Congressional pushback? And also on my tragedy derived from kratom, President Trump has expressed interest.

Can you describe the debate within the administration on that?

Let me answer the first one, because it's not a big debate on the second one. The reality around the most favored nation drug pricing is the president has dealt with the entire problem for this administration, but these contracts expire after this administration is done. So like so many things the president is trying to do, he's trying to set it up for the next administration so that they don't have to fight the same battle.

Now, it is going to be difficult for pharmaceutical companies to pull back. But we still believe it makes sense for Congress to codify what we've been able to achieve because it's been so helpful. Think about the $600 billion of savings is the average American over the next 10 years. It's such a massive number that they voluntarily, sort of, gave back because the President went after them and said, you got to deal with this problem.

And by the way, when we knocked on the door of these pharmaceutical company leaders, you know what they said? We knew one day you'd come for us. You know, they weren't surprised. They knew that this couldn't continue. So the president wants Congress, which I know has a lot on his plate but there are ongoing discussions around the great health care plan.

Just last week, the Workforce Committee, uh, pushed something out that is going to be on PBM reform, pharmacy benefits management companies, or the middlemen that often are involved between the insurance companies and the pharmaceutical companies. So there's other parts of the legislation moving forward.

But just to remind you, the working -- the great health care plan is codifying most favored nation drug pricing so it lasts for decades into the future, as we believe it should. This is all forward-looking, doesn't hurt these companies today, just make sure America is protected in the future. We want plain English insurance policies so you can actually understand the document that you're being given.

And we want transparency so when you go to a hospital, to a doctor's office, that you actually know what you're getting. As a doctor, when I prescribe something for you, I often don't know what it's going to cost you to pick up what I just told you to get. These are things that are fixable, and the pharmacy benefits is another part of this.

Let's go to -- let me -- the Daily Wire, Mary.

Thank you, Dr. Oz. Right over here. Thank you. My colleague, Luke [Inaudible] just reported, and he's done a lot on this, his investigations into Medicaid fraud and home health have repeatedly brought him to foreign born health care operators. Is CMS tracking what percentage of home health recipients are refugees or foreign born?

And why are foreigners using these programs at such higher rates than poor Americans?

Well, we are tracking illegal immigrants taking advantage of all health care plans. We've already recouped -- we've actually told California they owe us $2 billion. We've got half of it back already and I'm confident we'll get the rest, because they have state-based programs that we don't have a lot of visibility into.

But because of the working families tax legislation and other rulemaking, we are no longer allowing foreign -- uh, folks who are here illegally to benefit from these programs. Just to put it in context, in California, if you're on Medi-Cal, the Medicaid program in California, until this administration, you got full dental and full vision benefits.

Now, I'm for those benefits. I like them, but we don't give that to Medicare patients. And so we should at least be equitable and all of us together should decide what we are going to do as a nation. So if we as a country decide we're going to go in one direction, you can't have states splintering off if they're going to spend the other people's money.

The fraud, for example, that I'm talking about, and the use of money for illegal immigrants, the people who pay that bill when, for example, the largesse of California allows folks to get benefits that the rest of the country doesn't think is appropriate for illegal immigrants or home health care providers, that money is paid by folks who are taxpayers in New Mexico, which is a blue state, and Mississippi, a red state, so this is not partisan.

Everybody is taxed extra and has to put more into the kitty, because some states are doing things that we don't think as a country we would like to have happen. That's why this administration has been so dogged in this issue and why the president has been so aggressive. Go ahead. Mary. Here.

On Ebola, if Kenya does end up blocking the US quarantine facility there, and it seems like they might, since the Kenyan courts are delaying it, where will Americans who have been exposed end up going? And then why can't they just come to the United States? I mean, you would probably agree that the US has pretty good health care here.

So where will they go and why not to the US?

Jennifer, the main issue with having a facility close to the Democratic Republic of the Congo is if a patient is sick. Again I speak as a heart doctor. I want to take the patient to the OR that's right next door to the room they're sick in, not to the building next to them, or to three buildings two blocks away.

Because that time is precious to us; you have a golden hour in many of these instances around trauma but for illnesses, it's also relatively short.

So, we are confident, and the State Department is working on this diligently, that they're going to be able to work out something with Kenya. There has already been a fair amount of communication around this issue, and that's why there's a UK base there. We have other people who might be willing to welcome us, and we have our German colleagues as well.

So, there's many places we can send folks, but sending them across the world, especially when we're not sure what's going on with them, is probably not the wisest move. In red, take it away.

Thank you so much. Elina Shirazi from the Daily Mail. This is the fourth checkup that the president has had. He's supposed to have one a year. He's had several CT heart scans. What are the doctors looking for? And second question, I think you might like this one better, who has been your favorite cabinet secretary so far to do the briefings at the podium?

Huh, that may not be my favorite question. I mean, they're all obviously different. I think Scott Bessent's dry humor is fabulous. Marco is just an earnestly funny person; we can tell all kinds of stories about Marco's entertaining commentary. I think JD was spectacular, he's just very on his game, understands the issues, and he understands the American people, which is why I appreciated his presentation so much.

And I did watch them all, by the way, just to prepare. I am a doctor, I try to do my homework, I prep for the case. The first issue was about Ebola --

About President Trump's scans, his attacks, he's had four already. The president's supposed to have one a year.

Yeah, so, I actually have talked to the president about what he's sent to all of you. And I think it's just a routine regular exam. You remember I had the president on my show 10 years ago, and he also presented records. And at the time, I was stunned at how well he was doing because so many of these numbers naturally over time will start going in the wrong direction.

But if you look at these records, they're spectacular. You know, his cholesterol, his blood pressure, all the numbers are in excellent parameters. His ability -- and listen, I work with him frequently, many of you get to see him almost every day. That amount of energy and that amount of mental acuity does not exist in a vacuum.

You have to have a vessel to carry it and the president has a unique ability to just keep going at all hours of the day with remarkable strength. Let's go -- right behind you.

So, the administration has been stressing reshoring, manufacturing, pharmaceutical manufacturing is part of that. From those announcements of those 17 pharmaceutical companies, what's the timeline that we could see those projects come to fruition? Is it summer? Is it end of this year?

Well, these companies are already making investments in America, some are ongoing, some have announced. I went to a ribbon cutting in one in Charlottesville recently. And so, there's a lot of investment coming to America. But think about what you would do if you were a pharma executive. If you're a pharma executive, and America is open for business.

And we're trying to support innovation, saving people from cancer, autoimmune problems, dementia, all these different -- you want to be where the action is. So, these companies are coming here -- there's actually a brain drain from Europe in particular, but other parts of the world as well, of companies who want to come here.

So, it's not just that we're already going, it's going to get bigger and bigger and louder.

Would that mean jobs?

No, the jobs are starting as we -- the first time you hire someone to build a plan for you, we have a job. If you're asking for people with picks and helmets, that's also coming quickly. But again, I've been to facilities that are already under construction. So, they're starting and it will get -- and the president and I visited a facility in Cincinnati a few months ago that, again, they already have the facility, they're already running the facility, they're making additional investments to upgrade their program.

Yes, ma'am.

Thank you so much. I know this isn't your wheelhouse, but you are speaking on behalf of the White House today. Can you respond to any of the criticism from Republicans on President Trump's decision to tap Bill Pulte, who has no known intelligence experience, as acting DNI?

Well, I think Bill's a great guy; I know him socially. I've not worked with him in his current job, but I'm sure that -- I do trust the president's judgment. He is a very sharp and quick study of people, their emotional abilities and their ability to persevere in the face of hardship. So, I have confidence in his decision.

Yes, ma'am.

Back on Ebola. Given the World Cup coming up and millions of visitors coming to the United States, on the US preparation for this, who is in charge of proactive surveillance measures, and what type of surveillance will the United States be doing for visitors coming in? Will that be expanded beyond the DRC, Uganda, and Sudan?

Can you describe what is in place knowing this influx of people coming soon? So, Jay Bhattacharya, who I spoke to this morning, who is our brilliant leader of the NIH, but also CDC now, is running this program. He's got a lot of help from Dr. Heidi Overton and many others at the White House. So, it's a well-constructed game plan.

They aggressively got into -- and they're funding now a lot of the treatments that are being offered in the DRC and the Kenya facilities, just an extra way for us to take folks who are Americans who need help. But we have very purposefully put up testing tools and mechanisms at the major airports that people will be traveling through.

I have great confidence in Jay's ability; he's a brilliant scientist and knows a lot about viruses. He wrote one of the most important papers really describing the true reality of what was happening during COVID early in the pandemic. It got him into hot water because it was not convenient to hear it but he's a brave man who will make the right decisions and be transparent about this.

In pink. Just back to the question about Bill Pulte. Congressional statute says any appointee for the position of the Director of National Intelligence shall have extensive national security expertise. What extensive national security expertise does he have?

Ma'am, you're asking me a question that's out of my lane. I'm so focused on making sure Americans are healthy, that I have not been looking at what other agencies --

[Crosstalk]

Go ahead. Double time, go.

Thank you, sir. Thank you. All right, OK, that was fun. So, Dr. Oz, just now, you said that it should be surprising to people that personal care service attendant is the -- now, by twofold the most common job in California and the most common job in New York. The US health care industry has been growing rapidly, 7 to 8 percent annually, it's an estimated $5.3 trillion in growth.

Health care accounts for about 18 percent of GDP. Why should people be surprised that in two of the most populous states in the country, a health care related job like that would be a common job when it is, again, one of the fastest growing and continuously growing industries in the US. I mean, what's going on here?

The primary difference between paying for a hernia operation and paying someone to be a personal care service is the reason it's concerning to us. If you're having a hernia operation, you have a scar, so I know you got something, and you have a doctor who is licensed and you had it done in a facility that's also credentialed and has been inspected.

When you get personal care services it's an unlicensed person in an unmonitored setting promising they did something. That's a lot of handshakes and finger crossing and hoping that it worked out OK. This is a problem that has been growing for years, it's just gotten now to a crisis mode. It is just difficult to imagine that it's twice as many jobs as anything else.

It's not that health care jobs aren't important, of course they are. But if we put guardrails around these programs, we'll allow them to thrive. I'm here because I love Medicaid. The president has already said he loves and cherishes Medicaid and Medicare. These are -- Medicaid in particular, is the ultimate payer of last resort.

We cannot allow these programs to be defrauded into a turmoil that they cannot pull up from. And so, we, if we love these programs, will make the difficult decisions. Let me pivot from that just to describe what came out yesterday, which is the work requirement rule that our agency -- and Dan Brillman and Caprice Knapp did a fantastic job writing this, dealt with a lot of states.

But as you know, in the Working Families Tax Cut legislation, which I believe saved Medicaid. And the reason I say that is our actuaries told us we would be spending 5.4 trillion more dollars for this program over the next decade if we didn't deal with some of the legalized money laundering that was siphoning money out of the program.

Part of the reason that this was so attractive to states is they could take money in ways that it was not designed to be used paying people along the way, so they didn't have to pay for it themselves. I get it, I understand why the governors did it, but it didn't align the president with the governors. With that law we also had a work requirement rule.

Now, what was that? The work requirement was based on concepts that date back from when Bill Clinton was president, with Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, when the Democratic administration said the fraud is getting so bad, the abuse so big in these programs, we need to clean them up, we need to get people to try to work.

It's a path to prosperity. I believe, I hope you share this belief, that we are put on this earth with agency to change our future and change the country's future, make the planet a better place. We are put here to make a difference. But if you're sitting at home, which is true for the millions of people who are on -- who are able bodied on Medicaid, on average, you're spending 6.1 hours watching television or just hanging around.

That's not why you're here. So, as a path to prosperity, Congress very wisely said, let's get you back into the workforce. Let's require you to get free health care coverage, to be able to work for 20 hours a week, or volunteer to make up the difference if you haven't worked 20 hours or get an education, just participate.

And so that rule came out. It's a, I think, beautifully written effort to try to define for our nation what your part of the puzzle is. Because if you are going to get something that of value from the American people, there should be some obligation, if you're able to, if you're not able to, if you're disabled, if you're, you know, one of the categories that are well-defined, uh, in general, not able to work, it's different.

But if you can work, you should get up and work again, because that's historically how it always was. In 1961 -- in 1965, when Medicaid was created, that was the deal. There were 11 million people in the program. We've perverted that. Yes, sir.

Doctor, thank you. Since you're here speaking on behalf of the administration, part of the reason we're asking about the president's decision to appoint Bill Pulte to be the head of the director of National Intelligence, is it's been four hours, and we've been asking the White House why he's qualified to do so. You're a heart surgeon or a heart doctor?

Yeah.

Would you recommend a patient go see someone who isn't?

You're asking the question with the premise that Bill Pulte is not qualified. I don't know anything about his situation. And I appreciate you want an answer. I'm not going to be the one giving it to you. Go ahead.

Thank you so much. This is Elizabeth the Daily Signal. What are you doing, first of all, to remove any illegal immigrants who are still receiving Medicaid from the program? You mentioned earlier that something you've been working on and then secondly, Medicaid reimbursement for Planned Parenthood will resume July 4th unless Congress acts to extend the One Big, Beautiful Bill.

As CMS administrator, what's your message to Congress on that?

On the illegal immigrant side -- I'll take one question at time, if you don't mind, just because a lot of folks. We have, because we now can do it, a very straightforward way for the 44 states that don't have state-based Medicaid plans for us to be able to audit if the people that we're paying for our citizens or not.

In the states -- in the state-based plans, like I mentioned in California and there's a few other states, Colorado, Washington, etc., Illinois, they have their own plan so we have to now audit their plans. This is a challenge and that's why before I came here, I met with a bunch of Medicaid directors from many states, red and blue and they want us to help rebuild the tech infrastructure of Medicaid in this country.

Imagine 50 balkanized programs. You spend $20 billion a year, $20 billion for tech infrastructure, and we're not getting our money's worth. So we're putting $200 million more because the working families tax cut legislation we've got negotiated [Inaudible] $600 million of in-kind contributions from the vendors to be able to get the work requirement done in an effective way.

But I think it's the first step of a much larger national opportunity to fix how data flows. And one more bit on this, Medicare, Medicare's billing system, which many of your relatives are using, was a 1979-era, COBOL based system. I don't even have engineers who know how to use that system and so if you're going to really use cloud-based tools, if you want to use technology to help Americans connect better with the health care system, you have to update them.

The president has been supportive of this, so we are upgrading the system. And my hope is that we can use the tech transformation tools of this government to bring people to work with us from the private sector, and every major tech company is a partner of ours and our pledging 700. Yes, go ahead.

Hey, I just wanted to follow up on her question behind me. If the president's in such perfect health, why does he keep going back in for checkups?

I think he likes the results. He does really well. He aces the test every single day. And I don't -- I do actually believe that he is curious to make sure everything is going in the right direction. He's a very meticulous person in so many ways that are often underappreciated. But for him to want to know all the numbers and keep on top of him, it's the same reason he calls people at odd hours, because something's on his mind and he wants to deal with it. Yes, in purple.

I just wanted to ask about the UFC fight here at the White House next week. The president recently invested in the parent company of UFC. Is it a conflict of interest for him to be promoting this event while he's invested in UFC's parent company?

I don't think the president sits in the Oval Office and makes individual investment decisions, but I don't know about that issue. But knowing him, I suspect someone else is making those decisions for him. But wait, go ahead.

Thank you, Dr. Oz. The Obamacare subsidies expired earlier this year. What negative consequences have you seen? And do you see any policy adjustments that need to be made?

Let's talk about Obamacare. Let's take a step back. 2015, '16, '17, '18, 2020, there were nine million people on Obamacare, nine million. Today it's more than 20 million. What happened? What happened was we completely took the guardrails off. And I know this because I'm working in the agency that actually was told to take the guardrails off, and because there wasn't an earnest desire to keep track of whether you were appropriately on it or not.

But more importantly, just get the number to where we all feel good about ourselves. We had massive increases of people joining the program. We believe that 35 percent, roughly, of the people that are using the Affordable Care Act, Obamacare exchanges because they've never used the program once, they've never -- never filed.

The claim may not be legit, and that actual number may translate to, I don't know, five, six million people we could be paying premiums for because they don't have to contribute anything. So they don't even know they're getting it. These are people who have Medicaid and someone, often a broker, is dishonestly enrolling them on -- in an Affordable Care Act, or they're in two states at once, getting full insurance paid for by us in multiple states at once.

So we have evaluated these numbers. They're extremely concerning. There's a very strong effort by us. We actually made a rule two weeks ago that starts the process. We had tried to do this when we first came into office. A court enjoined us. They did not feel we'd follow appropriate APA guidelines, government guidelines.

And so we redid it and now it went back out again. But if you -- if you care about the ACA, then you'll want us to take the fraud out. And let me just take a step back. If we want you to go back to work on Medicaid, what's going to happen? You're going to start making money. As you make money, you're going to make enough money you get above the poverty level you're going to want to buy an Affordable Care Act product or private industry, commercial insurers are going to start using it. That's a good thing.

We're getting America back up, they're getting into work, getting them into the stratosphere, building prosperity, so we want these programs to work together. But if you've got millions of people literally who are getting insurance that they don't want, they don't even know they have it, and we're all paying for it, that's tens of billions of dollars we're throwing away.

That increases premiums for everybody, it drives affordability down, we're not going to tolerate any more. Sir, in the back, in the beard. Yes.

Thank you so much, Dr. Oz. We are happy to see you. I'm sorry I have [Inaudible] two question because I'm Turkish --

No, only one question. It doesn't matter, one question.

OK. So I'm going to ask you, you know, the Turkish President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan and American president is a good relations and there is a report they are going to meet in Turkey and the United States game in Los Angeles. Have you heard about it? And also, there is a NATO summit in Turkey in July, so you're Turkish American, I don't know.

Do you have any idea? Are you going to join in? And what are you are thinking about Erdogan and Trump relations?

I have no idea about these meetings. I've not been invited to anything. I suspect I won't be invited to everything because I've got a lot of work to do here. [Inaudible] right there. Go ahead. Yeah.

Jordan Conrad [Inaudible] Gateway Pundit. You know, back to the illegal aliens on Medicare and Medicaid, last October, you announced that you had found over $1 billion in federal tax dollars going to illegal aliens. How much money -- how much has that amount increased as of today? And, you know, it's kind of like fish in a barrel, are these people being referred to immigration for prosecution and deportation?

The number has doubled from what I said last year, we're about $2 billion. The good news is that many states realize this is a problem and they themselves have stopped doing this. Listen, it's the same basic story again and again. We as a nation make a decision because we're one people. Individual states have to take that decision and use it to the best of their ability.

Some states don't do as good a job as other states. That's why we're looking to individual states for leadership, for better ideas, to deal with many of these social problems that unfortunately begin to pile up over time and they threaten the very foundation of our social net that supports all of us. That's why this matters so much.

If you quiz the vice president, he grew up in an environment where he saw people abuse this. I know that's the case of people who are on the task force right now, the anti-fraud White House task force. So there's a passion about this, and for good reason. I mean, the president calls the vice president, Eliot Ness.

He wants him -- you know, he likes the fact that he's taking this seriously, he's going at it, and he's doing what's best for the American people by making some tough decisions. One last question. Take it away.

Thank you, Dr. Oz. Um, back to Bill Pulte but with the national security angle. The president has pushed very hard to renew FISA Section 702, expires in 10 days, just ahead of the World Cup. And there's this heightened threat environment with the war in the Middle East. We've heard all of these Intel agencies talk about the threat environment these days and how people will be very concerned about it. On Capitol Hill, you've had lawmakers today raising concern about Bill Pulte and on the Democrat side, questioning his ability to carry out that role fairly and not weaponize it. What can you say about -- to allay their concerns?

And can you also answer a question that was posed by Susan Collins about whether Pulte has a security clearance himself?

Ma'am, and I don't know anything more about Bill Pulte than you do. I did not think that was one of the questions that would have come up here. I hadn't even heard the news when I walked out. OK. Let me -- let me leave you with -- we had one last question but I do want to -- OK. Go ahead. Ask it. I'll come to you.

I have a GLP question. What's your question? Very quick.

Do you have any medical advice for the Americans out there that are suffering from a very serious ailment called Trump Derangement Syndrome?

I am concerned about folks who have focused their entire life energy on dislike of the president. It's disheartening to see people lost in that way but -- treating stupid is really hard and it becomes a real problem, and these folks are off GLP1s.

Thank you. [Inaudible] thank you very much.

Let me just answer for you because I'm out of time and I'm --

A very quick one. Are Americans getting real deal medication brand name like Wegovy Ozempic or it will be generic on Trump Rx at $50 monthly rate?

The Trump RX product is the real deal, the true API, the pharmaceutical product that's made by the two major providers right now, which are Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly. There are other companies coming into the space. We have these products that are given by these companies as part of this deal. So, we'd like to use the real product to be able to satisfy the needs of the American consumer.

So, it's not [Inaudible], it's the brand name?

It's a brand name. Last question from the middle. Last question, take it away.

Thank you, Dr. Oz. So, Kenya basically has stopped -- has asked US not to build the quarantine facility there. And the people, the responders from here who are supposed to go there, do you think the Trump administration's policy of not allowing people who are exposed -- Americans who are exposed to the virus, come back to the US, will dissuade these responders from going there?

No, I think we're going to work out, with Secretary Rubio's leadership, a very favorable arrangement with Kenya. I've been to Kenya, it's a beautiful country, very sophisticated people. They're going to do the right thing for everybody, and I think it's a perfect solution. Thank you very much for letting me participate.

God bless you all. Take care.