Presently tied up in Senate confirmation hearings, Mehmet Cengiz Oz, the Oprah Winfrey–certified wellness advocate known as “Dr Oz,” might soon become director of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). If confirmed, the daytime TV doctor has agreed to sell his roughly $600,000 in UnitedHealthcare stock, along with an array of medical industry holdings in devices, supplements, and pharmaceuticals.
Yet the mortal threat Oz poses to American health care goes deeper than his six-figure stake in the country’s biggest and most notorious private insurer. For years, Oz has worked as a pitchman for Medicare Advantage (MA) plans. This managed care alternative allows corporations to bill the federal government for administering Medicare benefits on its behalf and is a boon for private insurers. As a UnitedHealth shareholder and licensed insurance broker, Oz has long been financially and ideologically committed to the takeover of traditional Medicare by private insurers. Led by UnitedHealth, the insurance industry has made a hugely profitable algorithmic science out of denying and delaying care to maximize profits.
Private insurers already receive more than half of Medicare’s $840 billion budget. With Oz’s confirmation in sight, they are now eyeing the rest. The first step, announced in the conservative policy blueprint Project 2025, is to make Medicare Advantage “the default enrollment” for newly eligible seniors. The long-term plan is the ruination and displacement of traditional Medicare entirely — and ultimately to a system, controlled by big insurers, that Oz calls “Medicare Advantage for All.”
There are two ways Republicans could orchestrate a frontal attack on traditional Medicare, with Oz’s boosterism…
Auteur: Alexander Zaitchik
