'Conflicts of interest': Senators expose Dr. Oz’s plan to profit from privatizing Medicare
Dr. Mehmet Oz — who President-elect Donald Trump has tapped to lead the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMMS) — may have plans to personally reap millions of dollars from privatizing Medicare, according to a group of senators.
NBC News reported Tuesday that several Senate Democrats recently published a letter to Dr. Oz asking him to clarify his past position on advocating for Medicare plans to be phased out in favor of Medicare Advantage plans, in which private health insurance companies replace the federal government in administering health insurance to the elderly. If Oz is confirmed to lead CMMS, he would have vast influence over both health insurance for both low-income Americans and retirees as well as vast oversight over prescription drug prices.
In a 2020 Forbes op-ed co-authored by the former CEO of health insurance giant Kaiser Permanente, Oz called for employer-provided health insurance to be eliminated and for all Americans to be put in "Medicare Advantage for All" plans funded by a 20% payroll tax evenly split between employers and employees. In their letter, senators pointed out that Dr. Oz would personally profit if Medicare was privatized due to his investment portfolio.
READ MORE: Dr. Oz holds stake in company funded by agency Trump asked him to lead: reports
"Your advocacy for eliminating the Traditional Medicare program and replacing it with Medicare Advantage also raises questions about your own financial conflicts of interest," read the letter signed by six Senate Democrats. "In your financial disclosures from your 2022 Senate run, you reported owning over $550,000 of stock in UnitedHealth, the largest private insurer in Medicare Advantage and largest employer of physicians in the nation."
Sens. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) both sit on the Senate Finance Committee, where Dr. Oz will appear for his confirmation hearing next month. They wrote that Dr. Oz owes it to Americans to explain his "advocacy for the elimination of Traditional Medicare," pointing out his "deep financial ties to private health insurers."
"Indeed, private insurers that run the Medicare Advantage program drastically overcharge for care," they added.
Senators reminded. Dr. Oz that UnitedHealth is "currently under a sprawling antitrust investigation by the Department of Justice — including for its role in aggressively upcoding Medicare Advantage enrollees to secure higher payments from CMS — and has been sued on multiple occasions for Medicare fraud." They further noted that "UnitedHealth’s revenue from Medicare Advantage would roughly double to $274 billion annually" if his plan to privatize Medicare came to fruition.
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Click here to read NBC's report in full.
