Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services chief Dr. Mehmet Oz was in SF’s Mission District and Tenderloin, of all places, this week, with a visit and glowing remarks about a senior care facility on 30th Street.
Given the Trump administration’s desire to chainsaw federal health services into sawdust and its absolute contempt for San Francisco, it’s a little surprising that they sent an administration official here for any reason other than just to do a Ron DeSantis-style video hit piece. And yet, arguably qualified Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz was in San Francisco Monday night and Tuesday, and KTVU reports he visited the On Lok senior care facility in the Mission District and had nothing but nice things to say about the program, which is to a great degree funded by Medicare and Medicaid.
“What I witnessed here is a true miracle,” Oz told KTVU. "Instead of being in a nursing home, throwing the keys away, and putting you in a place where you might not want to be, they take you into a community that's all-inclusive.”
On Lok’s Program of All-Inclusive Care for the Elderly (PACE) allows its clients to still live at home, but transfers seniors from their homes to the facility to not only get medical care, but also has fitness programs, classes, and activities. “What they’re really doing is giving you agency over your future,” Oz said.
Oz Himself gave KTVU a full 10-minute interview (his show was on KTVU), in which he also disclosed he did a Monday night visit to the Tenderloin.
“I was walking through the Tenderloin District last night here in San Francisco,” he told the station. “I saw people who were fallen, and they’re having trouble getting back up. And the substance abuse and the associated mental health makes them really hard to take care of. But they’re people. And there’s a federally qualified health clinic there that I visited that is taking them in and helping them.”
“That is immensely helpful, not just on a humanitarian level, but it saves us money,” he continued. “Because if you can intervene before they get gangrene in their foot and have to get it lopped off, they’re going to be able to keep moving and get back into life and engage.”
Oz of course hyped RFK Jr’s looney-tunes Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) movement, which has now given us measles outbreaks in 11 states. But the visit also coincides with the appearance that Republicans are retreating on proposed steep cuts on Medicaid, which Dr. Oz essentially oversees.
The New York Times reports that House Speaker Mike Johnson has ruled out a set of Medicaid cuts for working-age people who gained eligibility under the Obamacare expansion. They will likely also abandon a plan to change federal reimbursements from a percentage of the cost to a flat, per-patient fee.
“I think we’re ruling that out as well, but stay tuned,” Johnson told the Times.
Related: As Layoffs Begin Across Health Agencies, SF Office of Health and Human Services Set to Close [SFist]
Image: On Lok PACE via Facebook
