WASHINGTON—A group of U.S. senators have written a letter expressing concern about “deep financial ties” the potential head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Centers (CMS), Mehmet Oz, has with Medicare Advantage. The letter was written by multiple democratic senators, including Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass), Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn), Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore) and Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill).
In the letter, senators have questioned Oz, who was nominated for the CMS administrator position by President-elect Donald Trump, about his qualifications for the role and his previous advocacy for Medicare privatization. Additionally, the senators claimed Oz’s past support of Medicare privatization could harm seniors’ access to affordable care and result in the overcharging and denial of medically necessary care by private insurers. The senators also raised concern with Oz’s UnitedHealth involvement and the ways in which it could negatively impact Medicare Advantage, which is detailed below.
“Although you were a renowned heart surgeon, you have no management experience relevant to running these critical health care programs,” the letter read. “But, we are equally concerned about your previous advocacy for Medicare privatization. (…) Your plan advocated for covering every senior that is not on Medicaid ‘through the Medicare Advantage program,’ the private Medicare program run by for-profit insurers. This plan would entirely eliminate traditional Medicare—a program you have criticized as ‘highly dysfunctional,’ but which provides more accessible and less expensive care than private insurers in Medicare Advantage.
“In addition to overpayments, federal watchdogs have found that private insurers in Medicare Advantage routinely delay and deny medically necessary care, impose burdensome utilization management requirements on providers and use deceptive marketing tactics to entice seniors to join Medicare Advantage plans. However, your call to replace traditional Medicare with Medicare Advantage ignores these abuses.
“In your financial disclosures from your 2022 senate run, you reported owning over $550,000 of stock in UnitedHealth, the largest private insurer in Medicare Advantage and largest employer of physicians in the nation. The company is currently under a sprawling antitrust investigation by the Department of Justice—including for its role in aggressively upcoding Medicare Advantage enrollees to secure higher payments from CMS—and has been sued on multiple occasions for Medicare fraud. Under your plan, UnitedHealth’s revenue from Medicare Advantage would roughly double to $274 billion annually.
“Given your financial ties to private insurers, combined with your view that the traditional Medicare program is ‘highly dysfunctional’ and your advocacy for eliminating it entirely, it is not clear that you are qualified for this critical job.”
The full letter to Oz, including the senators’ questions aimed at clarifying Oz’s current views on the matter, is accessible here.
