Oz squares off with dubious Democrats at confirmation hearing

Dr. Mehmet Oz intends to use his position as administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to reduce healthcare spending by tackling poor health, deploying technology, incentivizing providers, and cracking down on waste, fraud and abuse, he said during a confirmation hearing Friday.

The Senate Finance Committee convened Friday to consider President Donald Trump's nominee to run an agency that covers more than 140 million U.S. residents. Republicans supported Oz, while Democrats pressed the thoracic surgeon and media personality over his commitment to supporting Medicaid, traditional Medicare and programs from the Affordable Care Act of 2010, including the health insurance exchanges.

Related: CMS nominee Dr. Oz didn't pay Medicare taxes in 2023, memo says

In his testimony, Oz outlined the Trump administration's "Make America Healthy Again" agenda.

Oz identified unhealthy people as the main driver of escalating costs, in line with the arguments from his would-be boss, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. "Why is it costing us so much? Because of chronic disease. And those chronic diseases — and we made it easy to be sick in America — are linked to poor lifestyle choices," Oz said.

Oz's proposed solutions include healthcare price transparency, financial incentives for providers and artificial intelligence to automate administrative functions for providers.

"We should empower beneficiaries with better tools and more transparency so the American people can better navigate their health, as well as dealing with the complex healthcare system we have created for them," Oz said.

Oz also joined the chorus of Republicans claiming that tackling waste, fraud and abuse in federal health programs would produce significant savings. "This will stop unscrupulous people from stealing from vulnerable Americans, and extend the life of the Medicare trust fund," he said.

Finance Committee Chair Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) praised Oz. "You offer a wealth of firsthand experience and expertise, having studied, practiced and taught as an accomplished physician," he said. "You understand how D.C. legalese looks on the ground and how policy plays out in practice. This is exactly the mindset we need for a CMS administrator."

No Republican raised significant concerns about Oz's nomination, suggesting he will be confirmed by the majority-GOP upper chamber. The committee will vote whether to recommend him, and a full Senate vote would follow.

Democrats were much more skeptical, pointing to Oz's financial ties to health insurers, medical technology companies, drugmakers, fertility treatment providers and dietary supplement manufacturers, his past support for eliminating fee-for-service Medicare, and a GOP plan to cut up to $880 billion from Medicaid.

Finance Committee ranking member Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) asked Oz if he supported the Medicaid cuts. The nominee didn't directly respond to the question and said Medicaid needs to ensure more providers are available for enrollees. "The way you protect Medicaid is by making sure that it's viable at every level," Oz said.

Wyden was unsatisfied. "Let the record show that I asked a witness who said he cherishes this program, 'Will you agree to oppose cuts?' And he would not answer a yes or no question," he said.

Led by Wyden, Democrats also hammered Oz for growing wealthy though books, television shows and other media in which he advocates for sometimes-dubious cures and treatments, and for using loopholes to avoid paying $440,000 in Medicare taxes. Democrats have also said the ethics agreement Oz signed last month is insufficient.

Crapo attempted to head off some of these criticisms, asking Oz if he had conflicts of interest or other reasons he couldn't honorably carry out his duties. Oz, who vowed to divest healthcare investments, said he had none.

Democrats also pressed Oz on his promotion of unfounded cures. He agreed with Sen. Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.) that a green coffee potion he once promoted for weight loss did not work, for example. But he also said there were still investigations underway into some of the alternative therapies he espoused.

"There are many things I said in the show," Oz said. "I take great pride in the research we did at the time to identify which of these worked and which ones didn't. Many of them are still being researched, like the green coffee bean extract you just mentioned."

Wyden, Sens. Dr. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Peter Welch (D-Vt.) each questioned Oz about health insurance companies artificially inflating Medicare Advantage payments by "upcoding" patients to exaggerate the severity of their illnesses.

"What do you think the biggest abuses are right now in the private insurance sector?" Wyden asked.

"Medicare Advantage," Oz said. "If confirmed, this will be one of the topics that is relatively enjoyable to go after, because I think we have bipartisan support," he said. "We should examine whether some of that money should be reimbursed to the American people to ensure that Medicare Advantage does not cost more than fee-for-service Medicare."

CMS should deploy AI for a number of functions, including reducing the number of procedures subject to prior authorization under Medicare from 15,000 to 1,000 and tracking fraud, Oz said.

"We should be using AI in the agency to be able to tell what insurance companies are doing with their AI," Oz said."If we see that there's something being done — for example, inappropriate use of AI or inappropriate denial of services with AI — we should be using AI within the agency to identify that early enough that we can prevent it, and we should do it real time, not six months down the road."

Oz also told Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) he would discuss policies that would impose stricter regulations on pharmacy benefit managers.