CMS knows health care and health insurance, EBSA understands the Employee Retirement Income Security Act and other benefits laws, and the IRS implements the tax incentives and tax penalties that encourage workers and their employers to do what policymakers hope they'll do.

Benefits buyers, brokers and consultants who aren't familiar with how the federal health benefits regulation process works might be surprised to see the names of the Treasury secretary, IRS commissioners, Labor secretary and EBSA administrator on the list of authors along with the HHS secretary and the CMS administrator.

The people: As of press time, Trump had announced plans to nominate the following people to administration health benefits posts:
·   Scott Bessent, a veteran hedge fund manager, to be Treasury secretary.
·   Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer, R-Ore., to be Labor secretary.
·   Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a lawyer, activist and former presidential candidate, to be HHS secretary.
·   Dr. Mehmet Oz, a former talk show host, former Pennsylvania Senate candidate and former Columbia University medical school surgery professor, to be CMS administrator.

Related: Robert Kennedy Jr. to lead HHS? Trump makes his pick for top health agency

Daniel Werfel is the IRS commissioner and is in the middle of a term that will expire in 2027. It's not clear whether Trump will try to replace Werfel.

Trump has not named the EBSA nominee.

The nomination process: Trump has talked about taking a nontraditional approach to running the country in his second term.

Republicans will hold a 53-47 majority in the Senate. If Trump sticks with the rules and traditions that have been in effect, he will need votes from at least 50 senators, and from his vice president, JD Vance, to get nominees confirmed.

That means that a nominee either has to win the support of all about three Republican senators or attract enough support from Democratic senators to make up for any additional Republican defections.

Republicans' narrow majority in the Senate may give extra clout to Republican senators known for crossing party lines on key votes, including Sens. Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Josh Hawley of Missouri and Dr. Rand Paul of Kentucky.

The reactions: Here's a look at the reception Trump's picks have been getting so far.

Bessent and Werfel: The role of the Treasury Department and the IRS in regulating health benefits has not received any noticeable public attention away from BenefitsPRO.

Many organizations have praised Bessent's experience working in investment management at Brown Brothers Harriman, Soros Fund Management and Key Square Group.

He may have had some exposure to employee benefits through his role as a board member at Rockefeller University.

Negative reactions have focused come from groups that have concerns about capitalism, rather than anything related to employee benefits.

Robert Weissman, co-president of Public Citizen, a consumer advocacy group founded by Ralph Nader, noted in a statement that Bessent is a billionaire as well as a hedge fund manager.

"America doesn't need a hedge fund executive to lead its economic policymaking, least of all one under the delusion that tax cuts for the rich, rollbacks of public regulatory protections and an increase in oil drilling is somehow the way to strengthen the nation's economy," Weissman said.

Kennedy: Benefits and insurance groups have emphasized their interest in working well with Trump's HHS secretary.

James Gelfand, president of the ERISA Industry Group, a group for employers that sponsor self-insured benefit plans, expressed ERIC's interest in collaboration.

"ERIC looks forward to working with the new administration, and the new cabinet and political appointees who will oversee the departments and agencies that are so important to the employee benefits plans offered by our large employer member companies," Gelfand said. "As the Senate advances his nomination, we will be closely watching RFK's approach to issues such as fighting the chronic disease epidemic and restoring trust in the country's public health institutions. Perhaps someone independent, outside of the political establishment, is exactly what HHS needs in order to bring new thinking, and root out problems and conflicts of interest that have persisted for far too long."

America's Health Insurance Plans, a group for health insurers, issued a statement through a spokesman that covered both the Kennedy and the Oz picks.

"We are looking forward to working with the incoming administration and new Congress to protect and strengthen the quality, affordable health care coverage options that Americans rely on," AHIP said.

Dr. Georges Benjamin, the executive director of the American Public Health Association, put out a statement saying, "America deserves better."

"Kennedy's past statements and views on vaccines alone should disqualify him from consideration," Benjamin said. "He has stated that 'there's no vaccine that is safe and effective' and touted misinformation claiming that vaccines cause autism. A serious candidate for this position would follow the decades of real-world evidence that shows that vaccines are safe and prevent as many as 5 million deaths each year."

Dr. Jeffrey Singer, a surgeon and senior fellow at the Cato Institute, an independent research center that promotes a free-market approach to policy, gave the Kennedy pick a mixed review.

"I am concerned that many of RFK Jr.'s claims about vaccine safety, environmental toxins, and food additives lack evidence, have stoked public fears, and contributed to a decline in childhood vaccination rates," Singer said. "His calls to ban pharmaceutical advertising violate the First Amendment right to freely share and exchange information, including scientific information, and infringe on the individual right to self-medicate. However, he is right to criticize the [U.S. Food and Drug Administration's] politicized drug approval process, its foot-dragging in approving psychedelics, and its regulatory capture…. The Cato Institute has published extensive scholarship on FDA and public health agency reform, and RFK Jr.'s interest could create new opportunities for these ideas to gain attention."

Dr. Kevin Roberts, president of the Heritage Foundation, a research center that has traditionally been popular with Republicans, praised the Kennedy pick.

"The nomination of Robert Kennedy Jr. to lead the nation's largest public health agency is an enormous victory for the bipartisan, grassroots movement to make America healthy again," Roberts said. "In his independent campaign for president, Kennedy surfaced vital concerns shared by millions of Americans that the Washington establishment has refused to address: chronic diseases, the corrupting influences of Big Pharma and Big Food, and the decadence of a public health bureaucracy that treats symptoms instead of causes…. For decades, Americans' life expectancy has stagnated, and our health has declined, all while our costs skyrocket and our bureaucracy expands. This nomination sends a clear message to our failed public health establishment: Americans are sick and tired of being sick and tired."

Chavez-DeRemer: Chavez-DeRemer, who is only in her first term in the House, managed to get a pharmacy benefits manager bill through the House, as part of a health bill package. The bill would require pharmacy benefit managers to give employers and other health plan fiduciaries anonymized claim data they can use to audit the claims.

So far, discussion about Chavez-DeRemer has centered around her support for unions and the Protecting The Right To Organize Act, a bill that establishes new rights for union organizers.

Becky Pringle, president of the National Education Association, praised Chavez-DeRemer.

"During her time in Congress, Lori Chavez-DeRemer voted against gutting the Department of Education, against school vouchers, and against cuts to education funding," Pringle said. "She cosponsored the Public Service Freedom to Negotiate Act, the PRO Act, and other pro-student, pro-public school, pro-worker legislation."

Similarly, Liz Shuler, president of the AFL-CIO, focused on the Labor Department pick's record on issues other than benefits.

"Lori Chavez-DeRemer has built a pro-labor record in Congress, including as one of only three Republicans to cosponsor the Protecting The Right To Organize Act and one of eight Republicans to cosponsor the Public Service Freedom to Negotiate Act," Shuler said. "But Donald Trump is the President-elect of the United States — not Rep. Chavez-DeRemer — and it remains to be seen what she will be permitted to do as secretary of Labor in an administration with a dramatically anti-worker agenda."

Oz: The Federation of American Hospitals, a group for for-profit hospitals, issued a general statement about the Oz nomination.

"We congratulate Dr. Mehmet Oz on his nomination to be CMS administrator, and we look forward to working with the administration to advance Americans' health care outcomes and protect 24/7 patient care," the federation said.

Oz helped develop devices used in heart and chest surgery while at Columbia, and Scott Whitaker, president of the Advanced Medical Technology Association, welcomed his nomination.

"Dr. Oz has firsthand experience with medical technology and, as a result, understands the incredible impact these technologies can have in the lives of patients in need," Whitaker said. "And as a practitioner, he has also seen firsthand the negative impact a lack of access to these technologies can have on these same patients... We look forward to working with Dr. Oz to strengthen access to and coverage of the transformative medical technologies, treatments, and diagnostic tests that help Americans in every corner of the country to live longer, healthier lives."

Other commenters have emphasized decisions by Oz to let practitioners of alternative medicine and promoters of unproven treatments, such as use of green coffee beans to control obesity, on his television shows.

Dr. Peter Lurie, president of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, suggested in a statement that the Oz nomination is part of an effort by Trump to "turn over control of our vital health and medical agencies to a clown car full of unqualified quacks."

"Dr. Oz is famous for promoting medicines and supplements that do not do what Oz says they do," Lurie said. "That's the last person you'd want overseeing the billions of dollars in medical care expenditures CMS approves each year."