\n President Donald Trump on Thursday named Medicare director and former health care executive Chris Klomp to be deputy secretary of the US Department of Health and Human Services.\n <\/p>\n
\n The deputy secretary oversees operations and regulatory policy. The move would make Klomp second in command behind HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., whom he has been closely advising for several months.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cHHS is a massive and complex organization, but Chris knows exactly how to run it,\u201d Trump said in a post<\/a> on Truth Social. He added that he, Kennedy and Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz \u201cmade this decision together!\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n Klomp would need to be confirmed by the Senate as deputy secretary, adding his name to a list of federal health nominees awaiting hearings before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee.\n <\/p>\n \n HHS has been without a deputy secretary since Jim O\u2019Neill left in February as part of a broader shakeup in agency leadership, partly in an effort to refocus health care messaging around lower costs and the TrumpRx program, people familiar told CNN at the time<\/a>.\n <\/p>\n \n That same month, Klomp, who had been serving as Medicare director since April 2025, was chosen to oversee HHS operations and advise Kennedy. As Medicare\u2019s chief, Klomp became a fixture in the administration\u2019s efforts to broker TrumpRx deals with pharmaceutical companies and build Trump\u2019s most-favored nations plan to further cut prescription drug costs.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cChris Klomp has been unbelievable, a real star,\u201d Trump said during a White House event in April touting a deal with drugmaker Regeneron. \u201cYou don\u2019t know his name as much as some of the others, but he\u2019s a real star of the group.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n At HHS, Klomp led the searches this year for candidates to lead the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the surgeon general\u2019s office. In April, Trump nominated public health veteran<\/a> Dr. Erica Schwartz for CDC director and Fox News contributor<\/a> Dr. Nicole Saphier for surgeon general; both await Senate confirmation hearings.\n <\/p>\n