Do Dr. Oz’s Health Care Stocks Create a Conflict of Interest?

Dr. Mehmet Oz, a former daytime talk show host, U.S. Senate candidate and President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee to run the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), has faced questions from Democratic senators and critics that could pose a potential conflict-of-interest problem for Oz leading into the CMS confirmation process.

In addition to Oz’s evolving stance on Medicare and his past criticism of the program, public policy watchdogs are focused on his investments in the private insurance industry and health care-related stocks. His stock portfolio has reportedly held positions in UnitedHealth Group Inc. (ticker: UNH), CVS Health Corp. (CVS), Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN) and Microsoft Corp. (MSFT), all of which appear to have business ties to the CMS.

[Sign up for stock news with our Invested newsletter.]

Oz, who lost the 2022 U.S. Senate election in Pennsylvania to Democrat John Fetterman, at that time reportedly held between $280,000 and $600,000 in UNH and between $50,000 and $100,000 in CVS (which owns insurance giant Aetna), according to a recent USA Today report.

Oz also owned significantly larger positions in Amazon (between $5.8 million and $26.7 million) and Microsoft (between $1.6 million and $6.3 million), according to the Dec. 13 report. Both UNH and CVS offer health insurance plans for CMS, under Medicare Advantage, and Amazon and Microsoft have provided technology goods and services to the agency.

According to a December statement from Accountable.US, a nonpartisan research group focusing on corporate and official special interest ties, Oz reported the stock holdings in public filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in 2022. Accountable.US found no evidence that Oz had sold his positions as of December 2024.

Oz will be required to complete a similar disclosure prior to his CMS nomination hearings after Trump takes office on Jan. 20.

If Oz is confirmed by the U.S. Senate, he’ll immediately lead an agency that provides health care for 160 million Americans via Medicaid, Medicare and other programs. Oz would also run the U.S. Affordable Care Act exchanges, which saw 24 million Americans enroll in government-sponsored health care plans in 2024.

STAT News reported Jan. 13 that Abe Sutton, a former Trump administration aide on health policy, is likely to be Trump’s pick to lead the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation under Oz, which could represent a significant shift in vision for care and payment models.

Are Oz’s Health Care Investments a Conflict of Interest?

In a Dec. 10 letter to Oz, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and six other Democratic senators pointed to conflicts of interest if Oz were to secure the CMS post.

“As CMS administrator, you would be tasked with overseeing Medicare and ensuring that the tens of millions of seniors that rely on the program receive the care they deserve, including cracking down on abuses by private insurers in Medicare Advantage,” the letter states. “The consequences of failure on your part would be grave. Billions of federal health care dollars — and millions of lives — are at stake.”

“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 letter adds.

Does that clear the bar for a conflict of interest? Health care experts say that appears to be the case.

“If we were to judge by historical standards, it would be a clear conflict of interest for a decision-maker making policy decisions to hold and actively manage a stock portfolio of companies affected by those decisions,” says Harry Nelson, a partner at Leech Tishman Nelson Hardiman in Los Angeles and the coauthor of the book “From ObamaCare To TrumpCare: Why You Should Care.”

“In Dr. Oz’s case, there is little doubt that some of the large health care concerns he owns will be winners or losers based on his decisions, giving rise to an unavoidable incentive for him to protect companies he owns and a plain conflict of interest.”

As chief administrator of the CMS, Oz could also create a potential conflict with any health care companies wanting to curry favor with him.

“Dr. Oz would need to place his portfolio into a blind trust that he no longer controls,” Nelson says. “That would be the normal practice. However, the Trump administration seems to be taking a much more relaxed view, allowing government officials to invest and make deals while in office, but this is a flagrant conflict of interest.”

Transparency Will Be Key

Health care practitioners agree, adding that some transparency from Oz could defuse any major conflicts.

“Dr. Oz’s financial ties to companies like UnitedHealth Group, CVS Health, Amazon and Microsoft raise serious ethical questions,” says Dr. Sean Ormond, who is dual board-certified in anesthesiology and interventional pain management and owner of Atlas Pain Specialists in Glendale, Arizona. “These are major players in health care and tech, industries that benefit directly from CMS policies.”

For example, CMS decisions about reimbursement rates, insurance structures or tech partnerships could significantly impact these companies’ stock values — and by extension, Oz’s wealth, Ormond notes. “Even if he’s not consciously biased, the mere appearance of a conflict could erode public confidence in his ability to prioritize patients over profits,” he adds.

If Oz continues to hold on to shares in companies that do business with CMS, that could cast doubt on the integrity of his decisions.

“Let’s say CMS introduces a policy that boosts profits for private insurers like UnitedHealth Group or prioritizes tech solutions from Amazon or Microsoft. People might reasonably ask if the decision was for the public good or for his personal portfolio,” Ormond says. “These doubts could undermine trust not just in Dr. Oz, but in CMS as an institution, which has massive influence over millions of Americans’ health care.”

He adds, “Most leaders in roles like this sell off the conflicting assets to avoid the appearance of impropriety. Transparency is key, and the public deserves to see that he’s taking these steps seriously.”

Oz could choose to follow the lead of Scott Bessent, Trump’s pick for Treasury secretary, who amassed wealth over $700 million in part as a top investor for billionaire George Soros. Bessent released plans Jan. 11 to divest from assets — including funds, trusts and cryptocurrency — that could represent a conflict.

[READ: Top Nancy Pelosi Stocks to Buy.]

Ethics Guardrails

From a technical point of view, Oz could try to hold on to his portfolio shares, but doing so could be a bad look, especially if there’s a determination that the financial disclosures reveal a clear conflict of interest.

“Federal ethics rules require officials to divest from investments that pose a conflict of interest,” Ormond says. “The process involves full financial disclosure, followed by review from ethics officials who usually recommend divestment or the use of a blind trust.”

According to the U.S. Office of Government Ethics, presidential cabinet nominees must fill out a public financial disclosure, known as the OGE Form 278e. The transition team or White House Presidential Personnel Office requests paperwork as part of the process, and the OGE and ethics specialists at the specific agency the nominee is selected for typically ask “multiple rounds of questions.”

Ethics officials prepare an ethics agreement outlining steps the nominee must take to avoid conflicts of interest, according to the OGE. The ethics agreement contains standardized clauses addressing a nominee’s particular situation.

If there’s a specific problem, a resubmitted disclosure must include a resolution to the issue agreed to by the nominee, the OGE and the agency’s ethics specialists. Once cleared by the OGE, the document is sent to the Senate and made available on the OGE website.

Recent history shows presidential cabinet nominees usually agree to divest individual stocks in publicly traded and privately held companies, according to a study by Citizensforethics.org. The study notes that “most” cabinet members in the Biden administration “agreed to divest” their investments. But two Biden cabinet secretaries, Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, were “permitted to retain a limited amount of stock investments in publicly traded companies. These investments likely did not constitute conflicts of interest under OGE regulations because they appeared to be de minimis in value,” the study says.

Playing the Waiting Game?

Oz has stayed silent on the matter, but there’s little doubt that Senate Democrats will bring up his investment portfolio once the nomination hearings commence.

“Coverage from the media will either resonate with the public, making this a problem he needs to address, or be ignored by the public, in which case Dr. Oz will be vindicated in ignoring this issue,” Nelson says.

Along with other management questions, the conflict-of-interest issue could factor into Oz’s CMS confirmation odds.

“Like Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (Trump’s nominee for secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services), Dr. Oz is a fairly nontraditional choice,” Nelson says. “That could translate to a greater openness, shaking things up, but could also be a challenge with some of the detail work and nuance that has historically driven success.”

More from U.S. News

6 Best Health Care ETFs to Buy for 2025

10 Best Health Care Stocks to Buy for 2025

7 Best Biotech Stocks to Buy for 2025

Do Dr. Oz’s Health Care Stocks Create a Conflict of Interest? originally appeared on usnews.com

Federal News Network Logo
Log in to your WTOP account for notifications and alerts customized for you.

Sign up