Dr. Mehmet Oz, now one of President Donald Trump’s health goons, believes that if Americans were in better health, it would save the country.
However, saving the country depends on Americans forgoing retirement to prop up the country’s payments on its ever-so-ballooning debt. According to Oz, if the average American started “working a year earlier, right out of high school, or a year later—not retire” it would “more than remove the debt,” he says.
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Administrator also called for Americans to work harder. Americans are already among the hardest-working people in the world. According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), in 2024, Americans worked an average of 1,796 hours a year, ranking the country 7th globally.
But Oz believes that if Americans “work better during their lifetime because they’re healthy,” and complete all of his other burdensome demands, “it would generate about $3 trillion to the U.S. economy,” which the TV doctor believes could have huge benefits for funding Social Security and other essential programs.
Oz has been part of Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Make America Healthy Again campaign from the Trump administration’s outset last year. He caught Kennedy’s attention during the pandemic. The former TV host advertised chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine as treatments for COVID-19. And after a failed Senate campaign in Pennsylvania, he was tapped for the role.
Oz’s health advice for Americans has been questioned by authorities for decades. Prior to his role in the U.S. government, while at the helm of the Dr. Oz show, he would publicize unproven weight-loss products, calling them “miracles,” until he was brought before Congress in 2014 for his overblown language.
The TV doctor was speaking at an announcement of new mental health and addiction initiatives alongside Kennedy when he came up with the bonkers idea. The speeches were intended to promote Health and Human Services’ new advocacy project, which aims to address homelessness and addiction.
These initiatives follow last week’s “Great American Recovery Initiative” executive order, guiding federal action on addiction. On Monday, Kennedy announced $100 million for pilot programs.
This marks a shift from earlier policies that left $2 billion in funding for the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration in limbo, and a reduction in staff of about a third after 300 employees were fired during Federal DOGE cuts.
