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According to a memo produced by Democratic staff on the Senate Finance Committee and obtained by CNN, President Donald Trump’s candidate, who leads the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Dr. Mehmet Oz, may have “reduced social security and Medicare taxes significantly lower wages” in recent years.
An Oz spokesman pushed back the claims from Democrats and said doctors were observing the law.
Oz, who appeared before the committee for a confirmation hearing on Friday, paid “negligible” Social Security or Medicare tax in 2022, according to Sen. Ron Wyden, a ranking member of the memo and committee.
Celebrity doctors are responsible for overseeing Medicare if he is confirmed. CMS provides health coverage to more than 160 million Americans through the exchange of Medicare, Medicaid and Affordable Care Act health insurance.
Oz took the position that he was not liable for certain taxes, including the self-employment tax, known as SECA, for revenue from his media entity OZ Property Holdings, the memo said.
“What that means is that anyone appointed to run Medicare thinks it is acceptable to not pay taxes to Social Security and Medicare, just as nurses and shootouts leave out of any salary,” Wyden said at the hearing.
An accountant for Oz told committee Democrats that doctors rely on limited partner exceptions. However, Democrat staff argued that he was actively involved in the company that holds his name, saying, “Dr. Oz’s position is against the position of the Treasury.”
However, Oz told staff he would not modify his tax return.
“The Government Ethics Bureau conducted an extensive review of Dr. Oz’s finances as part of the usual review process. In a statement to CNN, Oz spokesman, Christopher Crepitch, told the Senate a letter indicating that a potential dispute has been resolved.
At least one tax expert said Oz’s actions were not against the law. “Dr. Oz’s position is offensive and I wouldn’t recommend. I’ll label Dr. Oz’s Dodge, but it’s not illegal,” said Steve Rosenthal, a former senior fellow at the Urban Brooks Tax Policy Center.
The White House did not immediately return a request for comment.
Oz, a cardiothoracic surgeon and longtime television host, was repeatedly asked during a confirmation hearing on Friday about his position on Medicaid. The program covers more than 72 million low-income Americans, and has been in the spotlight as House Republicans are expected to seek fund cuts starting in 2017 to help them pay to extend Trump’s tax cuts.
Several Democrats on the committee noted that Medicaid plays an important role in improving the health of children, mothers and people with disabilities. They noted that the program supports hospitals, nursing homes and clinics.
Sen. Maggie Hassan, a New Hampshire Democrat, asked candidates if they would support the Republican budget plan that said they would “end health insurance for millions of Americans, including 30,000 children in my state.” She noted that Medicaid covers 40% of US births and half of rural births.
“We don’t want our children to lose their health care,” Oz replied, adding, “We believe we must invest in maternal care to provide better service.”
However, Oz also expressed support for some GOP critiques of the program. He ran for the US Senate seat in Pennsylvania as a Republican in 2022, but was defeated by Democrat John Fetterman, who was then lieutenant governor of the state.
The doctors are in favor of adding job requirements to Medicaid, a long-standing GOP goal, but said that powers of attorney are not a barrier to reporting. (Arkansas added work requirements in 2018, but the mission was repealed in court. The Georgia program is in effect.)
Oz also touched on other controversial topics during the hearing, which lasted more than two and a half hours. The doctor, who told reporters it was “game time” when attending the hearing, promoted the use of technology to improve CMS services for beneficiaries and the ability to reduce waste, fraud and abuse, and to make it easier for doctors to care for patients.
He advocated the use of artificial intelligence to speed up the pre-authorization process so that doctors and their patients can learn more quickly when insurance companies and their patients approve treatments or medications. But Oz also agreed that humans should have final say when Sen. Tina Smith, a Minnesota Democrat, pointed out that insurance companies are being accused of using AI by refusing to care for them.
Several Democrats also pushed his views on Medicare’s advantage on Oz. Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren noted that programs in which the federal government pay private insurance companies to provide Medicare coverage to beneficiaries are more expensive than traditional Medicare. Part of the reason comes from a controversial practice called Upcode. This practice is for insurers to include additional diagnoses in patient records to ensure that they receive a higher refund.
Oz agreed that upcode could be cheating and “there are ways to make sure people are paid appropriately to care for sick patients, but not for non-ill patients.”
“We have a lot of tools, but some of them just recognize that there is a new sheriff in town,” he told Sen. Bill Cassidy, a Louisiana Republican.
This story has been updated with additional developments.
Veronica Stracqualursi from CNN contributed to this report.
