Mehmet Oz highlighted the importance of improving Americans’ life expectancy and keeping Medicare solvent Friday as a Senate panel began a hearing on his nomination to lead the agency that oversees health care coverage for 160 million Americans.
If confirmed, the cardiothoracic surgeon turned daytime TV star and failed Republican Senate candidate would take over the sprawling Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), which is responsible for more than $1 trillion in annual spending.
CMS’s expensive budget has made it a possible target in the GOP’s push to cut federal spending. Potential cuts to Medicaid, which health-care analysts say Republicans would have to consider under the current House budget proposal, could shutter rural hospitals and maternity care.
In his opening remarks to the Senate Finance Committee, Oz commanded the room with his TV-honed speaking prowess, mentioning his family, his background as a physician and the 10 Emmy Awards he has won.
He highlighted the need to avoid insolvency in the agency he wants to run, which oversees Medicare and Medicaid, and emphasized the importance of improving Americans’ life expectancy.
“This public health crisis threatens our national security. Why? Because it adds to the national debt that is defeating us from within,” he said. “Let’s be aggressive in modernizing our tools to reduce fraud, waste and abuse. This will stop unscrupulous people from stealing from vulnerable Americans and extend the life of the Medicare trust fund.”
Oz avoided committing to opposing Medicaid cuts when pressed by the committee’s ranking member, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Oregon).
Chairman Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) noted the “high stakes” for CMS. He stressed the need to insure the program is “sustainable and stable” and lauded Oz’s emphasis on a preventive-care approach to medicine, saying it would “save lives and taxpayer dollars.”
Oz stressed the importance of nutrition and preventive care in saving the government health-care dollars. He also pointed to AI and other technological advances in his efforts to “Make America Healthy Again” — the slogan of his potential boss, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
That movement is feeling good about Oz’s chances, said Brigid Rasmussen, the chief operating officer for MAHA Action, the advocacy group led by a longtime Kennedy ally.
She pointed to Oz’s experience with both Western and alternative medicine as an asset.
But preventive care physician Alankrita Olson said she came to Oz’s hearing to represent physicians against his confirmation.
Wearing a white coat, she said Oz’s “previous history selling controversial treatments that are not supported by science while on the ‘Dr. Oz Show’ make it hard to believe he would have the best interest of the people, of the seniors, the disabled and the low income people he will be covering care for.”
Oz is returning to the Senate over a decade after he was grilled in a 2014 hearing convened by the Senate Commerce subcommittee on consumer protection and product safety. Then-Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Missouri) pushed Oz to explain why he promoted products that medical experts questioned, including a pill that “literally flushes fat from your system.”
Among the top questions Oz will face if confirmed is whether he will expand access to weight-loss drugs — which could put him at odds with Kennedy, an outspoken critic of such drugs. “They’re counting on selling it to Americans because we’re so stupid and so addicted to drugs,” Kennedy said in October.
The expansion of Medicare access for the weight-loss drugs would cost an additional $35 billion between 2026 and 2034, according to the Congressional Budget Office, even including savings for improved health conditions.
In the lead-up to his hearing, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts) sent Oz questions focusing on his potential conflicts of interest, drug pricing, “promotion of quack science” and other issues.
“I am troubled by your advocacy for completely privatizing Medicare and your deep financial ties to health care companies that receive significant payments from CMS,” she wrote.
Warren and others have cited Oz’s push to privatize Medicare while holding up to $600,000 in UnitedHealthGroup stock. Oz has promised to divest his holdings if confirmed, according to ethics disclosure documents.
Oz has disclosed an income ranging from $2.8 million to $15.9 million for him and his wife, ethics disclosures show, for 2024 through early 2025. The pair said they have combined assets worth between $95 million and $340 million, according to a Post analysis, which includes up to $50 million Oz loaned to his 2022 Pennsylvania Senate campaign.
Wyden also pressed Oz on his taxes. Oz avoided paying some Medicare and Social Security taxes for three years by using an accounting tactic that has been questioned by the government, according to a memo prepared by Senate Finance Committee Democratic tax staff and obtained by The Post. Oz and his advisers told committee staff that the tax maneuver is allowed.
While Oz says he worries for Medicare’s solvency, Wyden argued that Oz “is unwilling to pay the same taxes that millions of Americans pay out of every paycheck.”
This is a developing story and will be updated.
