More Conflicts: Trump CMS Pick Dr. Oz. Reported Up To $56M In Three Companies With Direct CMS Interests

Washington D.C. – An Accountable.US review of Dr. Mehmet Oz’s most recent financial disclosures identified up to $56 million in investments in three companies that have direct involvement with the Centers For Medicare And Medicaid Services (CMS) that could pose serious conflicts of interest for Oz as President-elect Trump’s nominee to lead the federal agency. 

The potentially problematic investments identified by 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 Oz co-founded that became the “exclusive in-home care supplemental benefit program” for 1.5 million MA enrollees across 400 Medicare Advantage plans. Oz also disclosed in 2022 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. 

Seniors’ Health Security At Risk: The new findings follow previous reporting Dr. Oz has additional six-figure stakes in leading private Medicare Advantage (MA) insurers that he reported in 2022. Oz’s potential 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, Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and other lawmakers 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.

While privatizing Medicare would enrich the private health insurance industry at the expense of seniors, it is an idea strongly backed by Project 2025 which the President-elect has gotten cozier with by the day. Trump now openly praises parts of the Project 2025 agenda as “very conservative and very good.”

“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. 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.” 

###