President Donald Trump on Thursday named Medicare director and former well being care govt Chris Klomp to be deputy secretary of the US Department of Health and Human Services.
The deputy secretary oversees operations and regulatory coverage. The transfer would make Klomp second in command behind HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., whom he has been carefully advising for a number of months.
“HHS is a massive and complex organization, but Chris knows exactly how to run it,” Trump mentioned in a post on Truth Social. He added that he, Kennedy and Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz “made this decision together!”
Klomp would must be confirmed by the Senate as deputy secretary, including his title to a listing of federal well being nominees awaiting hearings earlier than the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee.
HHS has been with no deputy secretary since Jim O’Neill left in February as a part of a broader shakeup in company management, partly in an effort to refocus well being care messaging round decrease prices and the TrumpRx program, people familiar told NCS at the time.
That identical month, Klomp, who had been serving as Medicare director since April 2025, was chosen to supervise HHS operations and advise Kennedy. As Medicare’s chief, Klomp grew to become a fixture within the administration’s efforts to dealer TrumpRx offers with pharmaceutical corporations and construct Trump’s most-favored nations plan to additional reduce prescription drug prices.
“Chris Klomp has been unbelievable, a real star,” Trump mentioned throughout a White House occasion in April touting a cope with drugmaker Regeneron. “You don’t know his name as much as some of the others, but he’s a real star of the group.”
At HHS, Klomp led the searches this 12 months for candidates to guide the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the surgeon common’s workplace. In April, Trump nominated public health veteran Dr. Erica Schwartz for CDC director and Fox News contributor Dr. Nicole Saphier for surgeon common; each await Senate affirmation hearings.
Klomp has additionally been carefully concerned within the seek for a alternative for former US Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Dr. Marty Makary, who stepped down in May.