Dr. Oz Questioned about Whether He’d Support Medicaid Cuts

Mehmet Oz, M.D., at today's U.S. Senate Finance Committee Hearing

Mehmet Oz, M.D., President Donald Trump’s nominee for administrator of CMS, faced tough questions from Senators during the U.S. Senate Finance Committee hearing regarding Medicaid, Medicaid expansion, and CHIP, the insurance program for children.

During his opening statement, Oz said that he and President Trump “cherish Medicare and Medicaid,” but when questioned by Democratic senators about whether he would support cuts to Medicaid, Oz would not answer directly.

In February, the House passed a budget that seeks massive cuts—about $880 billion over the next decade. Although Medicaid was not mentioned in the bill and House Speaker Mike Johnson has said Medicaid would be left intact, it’s been suggested that it would be difficult to meet those goals without cuts to Medicaid. A Congressional Budget Office report recently suggested that over the 2026 to 2035 period, outlays for Medicare, Medicaid, unemployment insurance, and Social Security could decrease by $43 billion.

Medicaid provides healthcare to 83 million people living in the United States (particularly those with low incomes) and accounts for nearly $1 out of every $5 spent on healthcare, according to KFF.

“All my colleagues are going to want to know, are you going to cut Medicaid?" said Sen. Maria Cantwell, a Democrat from Washington. “We don’t believe in cutting Medicaid. It’s 1.8 million people now in the state of Washington. We have population centers in our state that are well above 50% Medicaid/Medicare populations.”

The state of Washington isn’t alone. In half of all Republican congressional districts, 21% or more of the population is enrolled in Medicaid, and in half of all Democratic districts, 26% or more of the population is enrolled in Medicaid, according to a KFF analysis.

Few people support cuts to Medicaid. In fact, according to a KFF survey, 40% of people want spending to stay the same, and 42% would like to see funding increased.

When questioned by Sen. Maggie Hassan, a Democrat from New Hampshire, Oz said he wouldn’t want to see children lose health insurance. But when Hassan pointed out that the Medicaid program provides coverage for about 40% of births in America and 50% of all rural births, Oz deferred again, saying he would have to see become knowledgeable about the Republican budget plan.

Oz Instead Focuses on Technology

If confirmed, Oz said he would be focused on implementing technology tools to automate many of Medicare’s systems, including prior authorization. Oz mentioned the need to “find efficiencies that help stabilize our insurance markets.” He wants to do that with better tools and more transparency to empower beneficiaries to make healthier choices. Several times during questioning, Oz mentioned automation and AI to assist with doctors and nurses with paperwork, including prior authorization, and eliminate fraud and abuse.

Oz’s hearing came the day after the White House pulled back the nomination of former Rep. Dave Weldon, a Republican from Florida, to be director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, one of the few setbacks the administration has had its nomination of cabinet members and other officials who need a majority vote in the Senate to be confirmed. Weldon, who has antivaccine views, reportedly lost the support of Republican senators after performing poorly in his one-on-one with senators prior to his scheduled confirmation hearing.

He mentioned that insurance companies require authorization on different procedures and have different criteria for authorization. “We should be able to create an experience for physicians and patients so they know almost immediately that [the procedure] requires preauthorization, and if it does, what do they actually do to qualify? That could be instantaneous. By doing this rapidly, we cut out several percent of administrative costs towards the intense frustration the American people have with preauthorization.”

In answering questions from Sen. Bill Cassidy, a Louisiana Republican, Oz endorsed Medicare Advantage but acknowledged that it costs more than traditional Medicare “so its upside down.” Oz said upcoding — rating people as being sicker or having more illnesses to get a higher rate — is happening systemically in some systems, and he mentioned home visits. The Wall Street Journal published investigative news stories last year about home visits and upcoding.

An October 2024 report from the HHS inspector general corroborated the newspaper’s reporting, finding that in-home risk assessments and those based on chart review generated almost two-thirds of the estimated $7.5 billion in risk-adjusted payments to Medicare Advantage plans and that "they may be more vulnerable to misuse because these tools are often administered by MA [Medicare Advantage] companies or their third-party vendors and not enrollees’ own providers.”

“Part of this is just recognizing there’s a new sheriff in town,” Oz said to Cassidy and the committee. “We actually have to go after places and areas where we’re not managing the American people’s money well.”

Oz, also in response to questions from Cassidy, described prior authorization — he referred to it as preauthorization — as a “pox on the system” and part of the 12% of the U.S. healthcare budget spent on administrative costs. He said there are about 1,500 procedures and medications that could have preauthorization but that insurers have lists of 5,500 and that the criteria for approving a procedure or medication “are all over the place.”

He said that the number of procedures — he didn’t mention medications in this context — could be limited to one thousand and that the criteria for approval could be standardized.