In a hearing on Friday, senators pressed Dr. Mehmet Oz, the TV celebrity nominated to head Medicare and Medicaid, on Republican-led proposals that would significantly affect the health care coverage for nearly half of all Americans.
At his confirmation hearing before the Senate Finance Committee, Dr. Oz bantered with senators in a friendly atmosphere, joking about basketball and allegiances to college teams. He largely escaped tough questions from either side of the aisle, displaying his on-air charm as he deflected Democrats’ most pointed concerns about potentially radical changes in health coverage for not only those 65 and older but also for poor children.
Many senators seemed distracted by the fierce debate over the Republicans’ budget deal to avert a government shutdown, and they dashed in and out of Dr. Oz’s hearing. But he is poised to sail through the Senate for confirmation as the next administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, an agency with $1.5 trillion in spending.
Senator Elizabeth Warren, Democrat of Massachusetts, made a big deal of his financial conflicts before the hearing. But at the session, she did not press him on those issues. Instead, she focused on his views about whether private Medicare plans are overcharging the government, an area where she and Dr. Oz seemed to agree on the need to tackle potential fraud and waste.
Throughout the hearing, he displayed a facile knowledge of a variety of relevant agency issues, although he repeatedly reverted to stock answers that he would need to study the topic at hand more.
Several lawmakers, mainly Democrats, tried to force Dr. Oz to express his views on the Trump administration’s goals to cut back on health care costs and agency budgets, but he repeatedly sidestepped those minefields.
“It is our patriotic duty to be healthy,” he told senators. “It costs a lot of money to take care of sick people who are sick because of lifestyle choices.”
This refrain is in line with the Make America Healthy Again movement championed by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the new secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, and Dr. Oz’s soon-to-be boss if he is confirmed.
Medicare Advantage and privatization
Introductory remarks from Senator Ron Wyden, Democrat of Oregon, held out an initial promise of some challenging questions. He accused Dr. Oz of dodging almost $500,000 in Social Security and Medicare taxes in recent years by using a tax exemption related to limited partnerships, something Democrats concluded after reviewing Dr. Oz’s tax returns. But there were no follow up questions on it.
Mr. Wyden also raised the specter that he was going to grill Dr. Oz on his connection to TZ Insurance Solutions, a for-profit company that sells Medicare Advantage plans to older Americans. Dr. Oz has been a relentless promoter of these private plans, which have been criticized by lawmakers and regulators for systemic overbilling and denying patients care, on his show and YouTube channel.
Dr. Oz, 64, is also a registered broker for TZ Insurance in states across the country, according to a recent investigation into his finances by The New York Times. Again, Mr. Wyden flagged the issue and did not follow up.
Despite concerns by Democrats that Dr. Oz would most likely roll back some of the rules meant to rein in the plans, he instead committed to strong oversight. He acknowledged that some of the brokers now selling these plans were “churning policies,” switching people from one plan to another, regardless of whether the change in coverage benefited them.
“Part of this is just recognizing there’s a new sheriff in town,” Dr. Oz said. “We actually have to go after places and areas where we’re not managing the American people’s money well.”
Several times in the hearing, Dr. Oz addressed bipartisan concerns over whether Medicare Advantage plans are overpaid. In response to questions from a fellow physician, Senator Bill Cassidy, Republican of Louisiana, Dr. Oz mentioned a study suggesting the federal government spends more on the private alternative to Medicare than the government-run program. “It’s upside down,” he said.
“We should examine whether some of the money should be reimbursed to the American people,” Dr. Oz said.
He also expressed interest in solving some of the bipartisan concern over insurers’ use of prior authorization for approving medical procedures by reducing the number of services that would be subject to review.
Republican plans to cut Medicaid
Democrats seemed most frustrated by Dr. Oz’s stance toward Medicaid, the state-federal program that covers 72 million low-income Americans. “All my colleagues want to know, are you going to cut Medicaid?” asked Senator Maria Cantwell, Democrat of Washington.
But Dr. Oz, who has not spoken much about the program he would also oversee as head of the agency, did not answer directly. He said he did not know the details of the Republican budget discussions, in which lawmakers are looking at hundreds of billions of dollars in cuts that could result in people’s loss of coverage as it became more difficult to enroll and states had to shoulder more of the burden.
When questioned by Senator Raphael Warnock, Democrat of Georgia, about Republican efforts to add burdensome monthly paperwork for some people to show they should get benefits, Dr. Oz said he favored the work requirements that Republicans want to limit eligibility. But he agreed with the senator about making sure people who should be eligible for Medicaid were not cut off.
Dr. Oz and his supplement business
There were other subjects senators seemed to veer away from. For instance, Dr. Oz has made tens of millions of dollars over the years promoting dietary supplements, often without any mention of his financial interest. He has been paid by numerous medical and health firms for showcasing their products. Many of those companies would be affected by any decisions he would make as the administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, and many already benefit from agency funding.
Senator Maggie Hassan, Democrat of New Hampshire, asked him to put a dollar figure on exactly what he has made from promoting supplements on his daytime TV show. He said he was not paid anything. He started to explain that Sony Pictures distributed the show, and that it was the entity paid by these companies (which in turn paid him), but he was cut off. Ultimately, Ms. Hassan was unable to extract anything meaningful from him and moved on.
Patient privacy and the DOGE intrusion
In the hearing, Mr. Wyden pressed Dr. Oz about the access granted to Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency to Americans’ private medical information. Mr. Wyden raised concerns about the need to protect people’s privacy given the department’s potential ability to view personal health and medical data. Despite his repeated questions, he said, the Trump administration had so far not addressed those concerns. Surprisingly, Dr. Oz said he had no discussions with the administration about what Mr. Musk’s team was doing as it inspected agency information, but he promised to “address what is going on.”
Measles
The measles outbreak in Texas and New Mexico has heightened concerns and leveled significant criticism at the response by Mr. Kennedy and the Trump administration. Senator Ben Ray Luján, Democrat of New Mexico, asked Dr. Oz whether he believed the measles vaccine was safe. Dr. Oz said he did, but when the senator followed up by asking whether it was effective, Dr. Oz stepped back and said that judging individual vaccines and their recommendations for use would not be under his purview but under that of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“My job, if confirmed, is to make sure we pay for those vaccines,” he said.
