Dr. Oz Tells the Country It’s Not Procreating Enough: ‘Americans Are Under-Babied’

Dr. Mehmet Oz, the administrator for Medicare and Medicaid, said the U.S. is experiencing a fertility crisis because “one in three Americans are under-babied.”

Flanked by the nation’s top public health officials, President Donald Trump signed an executive order in the Oval Office on Monday to establish moms.gov, an official website geared toward helping expectant mothers. Not surprisingly, Trump veered off topic at several points, including one digression about “Trump Derangement Syndrome” running rampant in Washington, D.C.

When it was Oz’s turn, the doctor wasted no time in telling Americans they are not having enough babies.

“So, let me speak a little bit about the reality that one in three Americans are under-babied,” Oz said, using a term that – according to a Google search of ‘under-babied‘ – only he and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. have used with any notoriety.

“What does under-babied mean?” Oz continued. “That means that you either don’t have any children or you have less children than you would normally want to have… We have a crisis that’s causing our fertility rate to drop below 1.5. Replacement rate is 2.1. So, we’re way below what we need just to even replace the people that we have in America. And one of the challenges is that rural America, where there’s 60 million people have a maternal mortality rate, when they have babies, that’s about 30% higher than if you live in an urban area.”

Oz went on to praise Trump for having “saved Medicaid,” despite the president signing cuts to the program into law last year. The cuts have hit the same rural America that Oz referenced especially hard. He then touted the administration’s $50 billion in spending on rural healthcare. That number represents roughly 37% of the estimated cuts to Medicaid over the next 10 years.

“And it’s being used for incredibly beneficial advances to help Americans living in rural America have babies safely,” Oz continued. “Your zip code should not determine your mortality rate if you’re having a baby. That is gonna change.”

Watch above via LiveNOW from Fox.

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