Dr. Oz nomination seen as potential boon for Medicare privatization

Dr. Mehmet Oz, whose unsuccessful 2022 Pennsylvania Senate bid included pitching voters on a plan to expand the privatized Medicare Advantage program, is now in a position to potentially actualize that plan.

President-elect Donald Trump announced Tuesday that Oz, also known by his TV personality name Dr. Oz, is his pick to lead the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS).

"Dr. Oz—a massive investor in Pharma—told the voters of Pennsylvania his plans to privatize Medicare… and they rejected him. Now Trump is giving him the authority to see his industry-approved plan carried through," wrote the progressive-leaning outlet The Lever, which covered Oz's support for Medicare Advantage back in 2022.

Through Medicare Advantage, which has been promoted by Trump and other congressional Republicans, seniors can opt out of traditional government-run Medicare health plans and instead choose plans administered by private insurers, such as UnitedHealthcare and Cigna.

According to The Lever's 2022 reporting, Oz pushed Medicare Advantage plans on his show The Dr. Oz Show and co-wrote a 2020 column for Forbes with a former healthcare executive in which they argued that a "Medicare Advantage For All" plan can "save" our healthcare system. In the column, Oz and his co-author articulated a plan to expand Medicare Advantage by imposing a 20% payroll tax.

Oz "is not a good pick for a very powerful position in charge of a trillion dollars of healthcare spending," wrote Matt Stoller of the American Economic Liberties Project on X, in reference to The Lever's investigation.

The Lever also reported that Oz's plan to expand private plans under Medicare Advantage could "boost companies in which he invests." For example, Oz and his wife owned up to $550,000 worth of stock in UnitedHealth Group, at the time of reporting. UnitedHealthcare and Humana account for nearly half, or 47%, of Medicare Advantage enrollees nationwide, according to the health policy organization KFF.

• Additionally, a 2022 investigation by The New York Times found that major health insurers have exploited Medicare Advantage to boost their profits by billions of dollars.

Project 2025, a list of right-wing policy proposals led by the Heritage Foundation that Trump has tried to distance himself from, calls for making Medicare Advantage the default option for Medicare beneficiaries, which, if enacted, "would be a multibillion-dollar annual giveaway to corporations at the expense of Medicare enrollees and taxpayers," according to the liberal research and advocacy organization the Center for American Progress.

Robert Weissman, co-president of Public Citizen, offered a related critique of Oz: Americans "need someone who will crack down on insurers who want to deny care to the sick, providers who skimp on quality healthcare, corporations that want to privatize Medicare, and Big Pharma profiteers and ideologues who want to slash Medicaid and refuse care to low-income people. What they do not need is a healthcare huckster, which unfortunately Dr. Mehmet Oz appears to have become, having spent much of his recent career hawking products of dubious medical value."

In addition to the potential boon for private insurers, some researchers, news outlets, and members of Congress have also raised concerns about the quality of care administered under Medicare Advantage.

A 2022 government report found that "[Medicare Advantage Organizations] sometimes delayed or denied Medicare Advantage beneficiaries' access to services, even though the requests met Medicare coverage rules" and also "denied payments to providers for some services that met both Medicare coverage rules and [Medicare Advantage Organization] billing rules."

In October, a group of three Democratic lawmakers wrote to the current CMS administrator about increasingly widespread abuses and care denials by for-profit Medicare Advantage insurers.

"We are concerned that in many instances MA plans are failing to deliver, compromising timely access to care, and undermining the ability of seniors and Americans with disabilities to purchase the coverage that’s right for them," Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), Rep. Frank Pallone Jr. (D-N.J.), and Rep. Richard Neal (D-Mass.) wrote in a letter.

"We continue to hear alarming reports from seniors and their families, beneficiary advocates, and healthcare providers that MA plans are falling short, and finding a good plan is too difficult," they wrote.

In particular, they pointed to Medicare Advantage plans' growing reliance on prior authorization, a complex, barrier-ridden process whereby doctors must demonstrate a proposed treatment is medically necessary before the insurer will cover it.

"Overuse of prior authorization is not only harmful to patients, it hinders healthcare providers' ability to offer best-in-class service," they added.

Social Security Works, a progressive advocacy group, warned in a social media post Tuesday that "Dr. Oz wants to fully privatize Medicare."

"That's why Donald Trump put him in charge of Medicare," the group added. "We will fight to stop this charlatan from getting anywhere near our Medicare system."