Government watchdog finds potential financial conflicts for Dr. Oz at CMS

Go figure, that Dr. Oz, the pick of Donald Trump to run the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, has significant investments in companies that do business with the agency that he would be in charge of.

Conflict of interest is the modus operandi of the incoming Trump administration, as we all know.

The potentially problematic investments identified identified by government watchdog Accountable.US and first reported by USA Today include a disclosure that Oz’s “single biggest healthcare holding” was up to $26 million in a digital health company that Oz co-founded that became the “exclusive in-home care supplemental benefit program” for 1.5 million enrollees across 400 Medicare Advantage plans.

Oz also disclosed in 2022, as he was running for a U.S. Senate seat in Pennsylvania, that he holds up to $30 million in two companies CMS called its “two primary cloud service providers” in its FY 2025 budget document, which requested over $3.3 billion in information technology funding for the year.

The new findings follow reporting that Dr. Oz has additional six-figure stakes in leading private Medicare Advantage insurers that he reported in 2022.

The conflicts raise the stakes for America’s seniors as Dr. Oz has pushed “‘Medicare Advantage for All’” plans to push traditional Medicare beneficiaries into private MA plans, despite reporting that MA-involved corporations “exploited Medicare for billions” through overbilling and other schemes, and that “Medicare Advantage plans cost more, provide less.”

This week, U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., sent a letter to Oz raising questions and concerns about his previously known “deep financial ties to the private health insurers that would benefit” from privatizing Medicare.

“Seniors deserve a CMS leader who will protect and strengthen Medicare, not someone like Dr. Oz who wants to privatize this vital and hugely popular program for great personal gain,” said Accountable.US Executive Director Tony Carrk.

“If Dr. Oz and Project 2025 had their way, Medicare as we know it would end, replaced with private insurance plans that cost taxpayers more and leave patients vulnerable to denials of care and higher premiums,” Carrk said. “Dr. Oz’s conflicts of interest pose a serious threat to seniors’ health security, but as long as big insurance industry megadonors are happy, President-elect Trump doesn’t seem to mind.”