Washington (AP)-The wealth of Dr. Mehmet Oz, the celebrity heart surgeon nominated by President Donald Trump, who headed the centers for Medicare and Medicaid services, according to a newly submitted government ethics report.
In the submission, the 64-year-old former talk show presenter promised to separate from these companies within three months of confirmation, and said that he would not participate until then that could affect his investments.
According to an analysis of the disclosure, the net wealth of OZ is between 98 and 332 million US dollars, in which the assets are listed in ranges, but do not result in any exact dollar numbers. Oz scored celebrated and made millions of his daily talk show. His latest disclosure shows that he also holds more than millions of dollars in shares in health insurance, fertility, pharmaceutical and vitamin companies.
OZ said in the submission that he would sell parts of its crucial and diverse investment portfolio, ranging from retail giants such as Walmart to technology companies such as Apple.
Its investment task includes the fertility of up to 5 million US dollars, a company with a network of fertility clinics. A maximum of 100,000 US dollars with the pharmaceutical giant -Abbbvie; And up to 600,000 US dollars with the country’s largest health insurer, Unitedhealth Group. He also has up to 5 million US dollars with Nvidia, a company for artificial intelligence that assumes hospitals.
And his work as a consultant for iherb, a website that sells health and beauty supplements, has earned up to 25 million US dollars in corporate shares. He stated that he would also withdraw from his position at the company if he was confirmed.
His investments affect almost all aspects of the health system, said Lawrence Gostin, professor of public health at Georgetown University.
“He has his fingerprints and financing in the entire health system, from services to artificial intelligence to medical products,” said Gostin. “It seems to me that these conflicts are so intertwined in his and his families, that I do not know how he dismantled everything from everything.”
A spokesman for OZ did not immediately answer a request for comments.
If the Senate were confirmed, OZ would be responsible for the programs on which more than half of the country rely on health insurance: Medicaid, Medicare and the Affordable Care Act.
Medicaid offers millions of the poorest children and adults in the United States almost free health insurance, while medical older Americans and disabled people grant access to health insurance. The law on affordable care is the program of the Obama era, which offers millions of Americans health insurance plans that do not qualify for state-supported health insurance, but do not take out insurance through their employer.
As an administrator for CMS, OZ would make decisions about how the government covers procedures, hospital stays and medication in these programs, and the reimbursement rates that doctors and other providers receive for their services.
OZ carried out a failed bid of 2022 for representing Pennsylvania in the US Senate as a Republican. During the campaign, he called on to expand Medicare Advantage, the increasingly popular version of Medicare, which is conducted by private insurers who were accused of cheating the government by the program by billions of dollars.
Before his time to politics, OZ was a renowned heart surgeon at Columbia University. He rose in “The Oprah Winfrey Show” in which he discussed weight loss diets, botox and anti-aging techniques. Finally, he landed his own show, which was popular, but appealed to deep criticism from the scientific community. Some colleagues from Columbia University called for his distance because of claims that he made on television about products. Senatorers also switch him to the weight loss drugs he has funded during a hearing from 2014
However, with Robert F. Kennedy Jr., he founded a relationship that was sworn in last week as the top health officer of the nation. Kennedy and OZ shared concerns about pesticides and unhealthy food.
OZ ‘confirmation hearing for the CMS administrator is not planned.
___
