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Dr. Mehmet Oz, the celebrity TV doctor nominated by President Trump to oversee Medicare and Medicaid, has been a relentless promoter of controversial private insurance plans<\/a> for older Americans.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019d be signing up,\u201d he told viewers, directing them to a call center in an episode that is still available on his YouTube channel.<\/p>\n What Dr. Oz did not tell the audience was that he made money from touting the plans, known as Medicare Advantage. The for-profit company operating the call center, TZ Insurance Solutions, paid to be featured.<\/p>\n Dr. Oz even became a licensed broker for TZ Insurance in almost every state, according to regulatory filings newly unearthed by The New York Times, with the idea that he could sell plans directly to viewers.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n He may be one of America\u2019s best-known daytime TV personalities, or \u201cAmerica\u2019s doctor,\u201d as Oprah Winfrey called him. But little is known about exactly how he monetized his fame over the years. All told, his business and family ventures are valued in the neighborhood of roughly $90 million to $335 million.<\/p>\n An examination by The Times of his myriad financial interests revealed not only opaque ties with the industries he may soon regulate but also a coziness with health care companies that lawmakers have already highlighted in questioning his independence.<\/p>\n He has made tens of millions of dollars hawking dietary supplements on his show and on social media, often without any mention of his financial interest. He has been paid by medical device firms and health-related ventures, and his money was invested in a dizzying array of businesses. Many of those companies would be affected by any decisions he would make in the government post and many already benefit from agency funding.<\/p>\n In an attempt to avoid conflicts, Dr. Oz disclosed on Wednesday in ethics filings that he would sell his interests in more than 70 companies and investment funds. Those include as much as $600,000 in stock in UnitedHealth Group, the giant conglomerate that is the nation\u2019s largest provider of private Medicare plans; as much as $5 million in Inception Fertility Holdings, a privately held company that operates a chain of clinics; and as much as $100,000 in HCA Healthcare, the sprawling for-profit hospital chain.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n In addition, he indicated that he would sell as much as $26 million invested in Amazon, which has a vast reach that now includes One Medical, a primary care venture for in-person and virtual patient needs; an online pharmacy; and the sale of health-related products and devices through its gargantuan retail platform. (The exact value of Dr. Oz\u2019s various holdings is not known because the disclosure forms allow asset values to be listed under a wide range.)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Dr. Oz also pledged in the filings to resign from paid advisory positions and to sell holdings in a digital stethoscope company, a pharmaceutical research and technology firm and a cardiology practice.<\/p>\n Still, he has several limited liability companies \u2014 Oz Works and Oz Property Holdings among them \u2014 and the nature of their operations is not known. He has no plans to close them and the filings state that he would remain an official at some. In the ethics agreement, he pledged not to \u201cparticipate personally and substantially in any particular matter in which I know that I have a financial interest\u201d or seek a waiver.<\/p>\n Kathleen Clark, a law professor at Washington University in St. Louis who specializes in government ethics, said Dr. Oz\u2019s financial filings struck her as \u201cthe appearance of disclosure without disclosure.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou can sell assets, and if you have a specific contractual agreement you can end it,\u201d she said. \u201cBut I can\u2019t even tell from his disclosures what direct or indirect arrangements he has.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The sheer breadth of his financial entanglements has prompted some ethics experts and lawmakers to express doubts about his independence, particularly over companies from which he received millions of dollars for endorsing their products and services.<\/p>\n Christopher Krepich, a spokesman for Dr. Oz, declined to respond to a detailed list of questions from The Times about Dr. Oz\u2019s business ventures. He would only say that Dr. Oz was cooperating with the Office of Government Ethics, which reviews the finances and interests of presidential nominees, and would comply with the agency\u2019s rules.<\/p>\n If the Senate confirms Dr. Oz, 64, to run the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, he would wield immense power, overseeing health insurance coverage for nearly half of all Americans and a budget of about $1.5 trillion in annual spending. Given his advocacy of Medicare Advantage, Dr. Oz would have the authority to expand the privatization of the government program as he and many Republicans have urged.<\/p>\n The Senate Finance Committee is expected to soon schedule Dr. Oz\u2019s confirmation hearing.<\/p>\n Government spending toward the private Medicare plans amounts to about $500 billion a year. The plans have been heavily scrutinized, faulted by lawmakers and regulators for systemic overbilling and unjustified<\/a> denials of payment for patient care. The very agency Dr. Oz would run recently cracked down on overpayments and forced insurers to be more transparent when they refuse to pay for patients\u2019 care.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The insurance industry has heavily lobbied against new rules that regulators have proposed in their efforts to rein in abuses, and insurers frequently challenge the government in court.<\/p>\n For instance, the brokerage industry successfully blocked new Medicare changes that would have imposed tighter caps on overall payments to brokers from companies like TZ Insurance as a way to curb overly aggressive marketing tactics.<\/p>\n Still, Medicare Advantage remains popular with millions of consumers, and Dr. Oz once advocated extending its reach to employer plans. Insurers have already begun pressing the Trump administration to expand funding for Medicare Advantage.<\/p>\n In recent years, supplement companies have captured much of Dr. Oz\u2019s attention. In 2023, he joined iHerb, an online seller of vitamins and supplements, as an adviser and spokesman. In the new financial filing, his investments in iHerb represent one of his largest financial holdings, worth anywhere from $5 million to $25 million.<\/p>\n In the ethics agreement, whether Dr. Oz would extricate his interests from iHerb remains murky: Experts who reviewed it for The Times said the wording held open the possibility that even once he is at the helm of the agency, Dr. Oz might retain some iHerb stock until the company goes public or is bought. Either way, he stands to make significant money from his stake in iHerb.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Like Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the nation\u2019s new health secretary, Dr. Oz is critical of the nation\u2019s overreliance on drugs and surgery as treatments for chronic illness over diet and fitness. (Mr. Kennedy, 71, disclosed recently that his health insurance was provided by a Medicare Advantage plan.)<\/p>\n \u201cHe\u2019s got big ambitions for the health of the country, honestly,\u201d said Andy Slavitt, who served as the acting agency administrator under President Barack Obama. Mr. Slavitt, a former UnitedHealth executive, said that Dr. Oz \u201cvery much wants to do the job as a physician and focus on quality.\u201d<\/p>\n Dr. Oz was born in Cleveland to a wealthy Turkish American family. His father, Mustafa, was a thoracic surgeon who died in 2019. He has familial links to one of Turkey\u2019s largest pharmaceutical companies, Atabay, that was founded by his maternal grandfather. It makes ingredients for medications, including opioids, that are currently sold in the United States.<\/p>\n It does not appear that he had an ownership stake in the company, although he has had contact<\/a> with top health officials in Turkey along with his uncle, who was once Atabay\u2019s chairman.<\/p>\n In 2018, the uncle, B\u00fclent Atabay, owned the lion\u2019s share of the company, while his mother, Suna, owned a much smaller piece, according to a Turkish commercial registry notice, the latest available.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n After graduating from Harvard and receiving his medical and business degrees from the University of Pennsylvania, Dr. Oz became a successful cardiothoracic surgeon at what was then known as Columbia-Presbyterian in New York. He was famously part of a team that performed a heart transplant in 1996 on the brother of Joe Torre, the former Yankees manager.<\/p>\n He and his wife Lisa of nearly 40 years are fabulously wealthy by almost any measure.<\/p>\n She is among numerous heirs to one of the nation\u2019s largest private companies, Asplundh Tree Expert, which provides tree removal and related services for utilities and municipalities. The couple\u2019s stakes in Asplundh were worth between roughly $11 million to $52 million, according to the latest financial filings.<\/p>\n Dr. Oz parlayed his career as a surgeon into a multi-million-dollar business that catapulted him into Americans\u2019 living rooms and enriched him and his family.<\/p>\n He developed a TV persona, appearing in 2004 on \u201cOprah.\u201d That morphed into the long-running \u201cDr. Oz\u201d show, which aired from 2009 until early 2022.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n During the Covid pandemic, Dr. Oz used his high-profile medical persona to espouse a highly questionable treatment. He appeared on Fox News more than two dozen times talking about the benefits of the malaria drugs hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine as treatments for Covid and was influential in persuading Mr. Trump of their value despite sparse evidence.<\/p>\n He backtracked only after a study<\/a> showed more patients were dying when treated with the hydroxychloroquine than those who were not taking it. Further studies proved the drug to be ineffective against Covid. Dr. Oz defended his position, saying he put patients first and argued the politics around Covid left many treatments to be \u201cregularly discounted by the medical establishment.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Over the years, his peers have publicly denounced him for some of his dubious medical claims. \u201cHe has made clear that he will put enriching himself above all else, even in instances where people\u2019s health is endangered,\u201d a group of about 150 physicians, \u201cReal Doctors Against Oz,\u201d<\/a> wrote in opposing his Senate candidacy in 2022.<\/p>\n And at Columbia, where he spent much of his medical career performing heart surgery and teaching, he remains a complicated figure. The university refused to fire him in 2015 after a group of doctors urged it to sever ties, describing Dr. Oz as \u201cguilty of either outrageous conflicts of interest or flawed judgments about what constitutes appropriate medical treatments, or both.\u201d<\/p>\n Dr. Oz responded at the time that he never promoted products for financial gain and argued that those seeking his ouster \u201chave big ties to big industry.\u201d<\/p>\n On his daytime show, Dr. Oz frequently and vaguely referred to companies he promoted as trusted sponsorship partners. Those words might not have registered with millions of his viewers, but they meant that the companies paid to be featured on his show in ways that were akin to an infomercial.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n MedicareAdvantage.com, operated by TZ Insurance, was one such trusted partner.<\/p>\n A spokesman for TZ Insurance said it paid Sony Pictures Television for the promotion on his daytime TV show and cut ties with Dr. Oz in 2022, the same year that the television show ended and he was campaigning for the Senate.<\/p>\n The spokesman for TZ said that it had registered Dr. Oz as an insurance broker as part of a marketing strategy for him to speak directly to customers, but that didn\u2019t happen.<\/p>\n Still, Dr. Oz remains licensed as a broker in more than 20 states. Last year Wisconsin pulled his license over failure to pay $996.15 in state taxes on unspecified income, according to public records and a spokeswoman for the state. That has since been paid, state officials said.<\/p>\n Another trusted partner was Omron, a maker of blood pressure monitors. It announced it had \u201cjoined forces\u201d with the Dr. Oz show in a 2010 news release<\/a> though neither the show nor the company have revealed the financial details of their arrangement.<\/p>\n In an episode<\/a> available on his YouTube channel, Dr. Oz wore scrubs and featured Omron\u2019s device to explain the virtues of taking your blood pressure. He worked with Walmart<\/a> to get Omron device coupons for consumers and provided them to his audience.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Omron\u2019s foundation has been a generous donor to Dr. Oz\u2019s personal charity, HealthCorps, giving more than $250,000 since 2016, according to tax records reviewed by The Times.<\/p>\n An Omron spokesman said it too paid Sony and the company had \u201cno current ties\u201d to Dr. Oz.<\/p>\n Omron\u2019s business, however, relies partly on Medicare, which pays for its blood pressure monitor in some circumstances, and he would oversee requests for expanded coverage.<\/p>\n But ethics experts say these endorsements may be particularly problematic. \u201cHis history is more than just ownership,\u201d said Jordan Libowitz, a spokesman for Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics, a watchdog group. Even if Dr. Oz divests his stocks and discontinues financial relationships with these companies, he should recuse himself from issues with the businesses he was paid to advise or promote, he said.<\/p>\n For years Dr. Oz used his show to promote dietary supplements, often making unsubstantiated claims about their effectiveness. <\/span>He described selenium supplements as the \u201choly grail of cancer prevention\u201d and hailed green coffee extract as a \u201cmagic weight-loss cure.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n At a hearing in 2014, when senators confronted him with his exaggerated statements about weight-loss products, he responded, \u201cMy job on the show, I feel, is to be a cheerleader for the audience.\u201d<\/p>\n Dr. Oz was often a paid cheerleader. In 2012, he became a spokesman for Usana Health Sciences, a supplement company in Utah.<\/p>\n Usana also was referred to as a trusted sponsorship partner on his TV show. The company\u2019s products were featured prominently and consumers could buy them through his TV website, according to a regulatory filing. Dr. Oz was also deeply involved in the company, attending Usana corporate events to rally employees.<\/p>\n \u201cUsana\u2019s global effort to seek out health solutions knows no bounds,\u201d Dr. Oz proclaimed in one promotional video<\/a>.<\/p>\n What money Dr. Oz and his show made from the Usana relationship is unclear; Dr. Oz and the company declined to comment. But in a court filing in 2018, the plaintiff in a trademark infringement case against Usana claimed the supplement company paid more than $50 million in the previous five years for promotion on the Dr. Oz show.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Usana said its relationship with the Dr. Oz show ended in 2022, the year the show went off air. A year later he struck up a relationship with iHerb, whose other big-name pitchman is Mike Tyson, the former heavyweight champion.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n There is little public information about iHerb, which is privately held and says it is \u201ca multi-billion-dollar eCommerce platform.\u201d<\/p>\n In the last few years without his daytime show, Dr. Oz has relied heavily on his social media accounts \u2014 Instagram, TikTok and X \u2014 where he pitched iHerb to millions of followers. He recommended supplements that he said would promote hair growth and smoother skin<\/a>. Olive oil, which iHerb sells, \u201cmight be able to actually help with Alzheimer\u2019s.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n In a letter, Public Citizen<\/a>, a consumer advocacy group, urged federal regulators to examine Dr. Oz\u2019s posts, saying he did not always make clear his financial ties to iHerb, and to investigate whether he violated government policy by making \u201cundisclosed endorsements and product advertisements.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n After Mr. Trump picked him in November to lead the Medicare-Medicaid agency, Dr. Oz did not drop his enthusiasm for iHerb. Over Thanksgiving, he promoted the company\u2019s supplements on Instagram as a way to reduce stress<\/a>.<\/p>\n Under the private Medicare plans, customers are allowed to buy over-the-counter medicines and supplements through debit or prepaid cards, another potential conflict for Dr. Oz because of his history with iHerb and other supplement companies.<\/p>\n And he has not shied from making the most personal of appeals for these products.<\/p>\n In social media posts, Dr. Oz is pictured with his mother, who has Alzheimer\u2019s, and claimed that iHerb supplements he sent her were among the steps that had \u201cprobably slowed\u201d<\/a> the progression of her disease.<\/p>\n Even if he were to recuse himself from agency coverage of products like iHerb\u2019s, his endorsements would continue to linger online.<\/p>\n Teddy Rosenbluth, Safak Timur and Christina Jewett contributed reporting.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\nA Family\u2019s Financial Ties<\/h2>\n
The Hidden Hand<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
The Business of Wellness<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n