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u.s. senate
Warren Urges Medicare Nominee Oz to 'Divest From Financial Conflicts of Interest'
"By making these commitments, you would increase Americans' trust in your ability to serve the public interest during your time at CMS—rather than the special interests of companies in your network."
Mar 12, 2025
U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren on Wednesday called on Dr. Mehmet Oz, President Donald Trump's nominee to head the federal agency in charge of Medicare, to divest all financial ties to Big Pharma and healthcare companies in order to avoid conflicts of interest and gain the public's trust.
"Congratulations on your nomination to serve as administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS)," Warren (D-Mass.) wrote in a letter to the celebrity heart surgeon and erstwhile purveyor of phony weight loss cures. "If confirmed, you will be expected to steward CMS' $1.5 trillion budget in the best interest of the over 140 million Americans on Medicare and Medicaid. Entering this role with financial conflicts of interest would undermine your effectiveness and the effectiveness of the programs you are slated to administer."
"To avoid this, I request that you agree to: divest any remaining financial interests in health-related companies or patents that you will have the power to influence, recuse from matters involving your former employers and clients, and, for at least four years after you leave office, not lobby CMS or join the industries that depend on CMS' work," the senator said.
"Entering this role with financial conflicts of interest would undermine your effectiveness and the effectiveness of the programs you are slated to administer."
"By making these commitments, you would increase Americans' trust in your ability to serve the public interest during your time at CMS—rather than the special interests of companies in your network," she added.
"You have deep ties to companies that could profit from your decisions at CMS," Warren noted. "You currently serve as a managing member or adviser of multiple healthcare and pharmaceutical firms with a financial stake in CMS policy, including how the agency sets payment rates and coverage determinations for Medicare and Medicaid."
Warren continued:
You also use your public platforms—including your website, TV show, TikTok, and Instagram pages—to promote drugs, such as Ozempic, produced by pharmaceutical companies that are currently seeking expanded CMS coverage approval and that are subject to government drug negotiations—which you would be responsible for conducting. You have been paid to push your show's viewers to enroll in the private alternative to Medicare, Medicare Advantage—a program run by private health insurers that overcharged CMS by at least $83 billion in 2024 alone.
Doctors have critiqued you for allegedly "promoting quack treatments and cures in the interest of personal financial gain." Furthermore, much of your financial portfolio (worth at least $98 million) is invested in healthcare and pharmaceutical companies whose value is tied to CMS' regulatory work.
Last December, the watchdog Accountable.US revealed that Oz had invested as much as $56 million in three companies with direct CMS interests. In 2022, Oz's single biggest healthcare holding was up to $26 million in Sharecare, a digital health company Oz co-founded, and which became the exclusive in-home supplemental care program for 1.5 million Medicare Advantage customers.
On Tuesday, the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen published a research brief examining the hundreds of millions of dollars spent on political lobbying by Medicare Advantage companies ahead of Oz's confirmation hearing, which is scheduled for Friday morning.
Warren and other Democratic lawmakers previously pressed Oz on his advocacy for Medicare privatization, including a 2020 call for enrolling all U.S. seniors in Medicare Advantage plans.
Last month, Oz pledged to divestfrom insurance companies and drugmakers and step down from his advisory positions if his nomination is confirmed.
"I appreciate that you have agreed to divest much of your portfolio and resign from your advisory posts," Warren wrote. "Still, given your close ties to the industry that you would regulate, if you are confirmed, the public would have reason to question your impartiality and commitment to serving the public's interest."
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Tell Your Senators: Don’t Give Trump and Musk a Blank Check to Continue Their Pillage
Why should any member of Congress vote in favor of a continuing resolution to fund government services that are no longer continuing?
Mar 12, 2025
Yesterday, the U.S. House passed legislation to fund the government through September 30 and thereby avert a shutdown at the end of this week.
The measure now goes to the Senate, where Democrats must decide whether to support it and thereby hand President Donald Trump and Elon Musk a blank check to continue their assault on the federal government.
The House bill would keep last year’s spending levels largely flat but would increase spending for the military by $6 billion and cut more than $1 billion from the District of Columbia’s budget.
Today’s real choice is between a continuing resolution that gives Trump and Musk free rein to decide what government services they want to continue and what services they want to shut down—or demanding that Trump and Musk stop usurping the power of Congress, as a condition for keeping the government funded.
In normal times, I recommend that Democrats vote for continuing budget resolutions because Democrats support the vital services that the government provides to the American people—Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Veterans services, education, the Food and Drug Administration, environmental protection, and much else.
In normal times, Democrats want to keep the government open.
In normal times, Democrats would be wrong to vote against a continuing resolution that caused the government to shut down.
But these are not normal times.
The president of the United States and the richest person in the world are already shutting the government down. They have effectively closed USAID and the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection. They have sent half the personnel of the Department of Education packing. They are eliminating Environmental Protection Agency offices responsible for addressing high levels of pollution facing poor communities.
They are usurping from Congress the power of the purse—the power to decide what services are to be funded and received by the American people—and are arrogating that power to themselves.
In 1996, when I was in then-President Bill Clinton’s cabinet, we opposed Newt Gingrich’s budget bullying. We also understood that Gingrich’s demands would seriously cripple the federal government. So Bill Clinton refused to go along with Gingrich’s budget resolution, and the government was shuttered for four long painful weeks..
Today’s situation is far worse. Trump and Musk aren’t just making demands that would cripple the federal government. They are directly crippling the federal government.
Why should any member of Congress vote in favor of a continuing resolution to fund government services that are no longer continuing?
Why should any member of Congress vote to give Trump and Musk a trillion dollars and then let them decide how to spend it—or not spend it?
Why should Congress give Trump and Musk a blank check to continue their pillage?
The real choice congressional Democrats face today is not between a continuing resolution that allows the government to function normally or a government shutdown. Under Trump and Musk, the government is not functioning normally. It is not continuing. It is already shutting down.
Today’s real choice is between a continuing resolution that gives Trump and Musk free rein to decide what government services they want to continue and what services they want to shut down—or demanding that Trump and Musk stop usurping the power of Congress, as a condition for keeping the government funded.
Trump, Musk, and the rest of their regime have made it clear that they don’t care what Congress or the courts say. They are acting unconstitutionally. They are actively destroying our system of government.
The spineless Republicans will not say this publicly. So Democrats must—and Democrats must insist on budget language that holds Trump and Musk accountable.
The House’s Republican-drafted budget resolution isn’t contingent on Trump observing existing laws. It does not instruct the president to stop Musk from riding roughshod over the federal government. It doesn’t tell the president and his cabinet to spend the money Congress intended to be spent.
Members of Trump’s team are already saying that if a continuing resolution is passed they will not observe laws that Congress has enacted and will not spend funds that Congress has authorized and appropriated. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, for example, says that even if the State Department is fully funded, he will void 83% of the contracts authorized for USAID.
Senate Democrats are needed to obtain 60 votes needed to pass the House’s continuing budget resolution through the Senate. But there is no point in Democrats voting to fund the government only to let Trump and Musk do whatever they see fit with those funds.
Senate Democrats have an opportunity to stop Trump and Musk from their illegal and unconstitutional shutting of the government. Democrats should say they’ll vote for the continuing budget resolution to keep the government going only if Trump agrees to abide by the law and keep the government going—fully funding the services that Congress intends to be fully funded and stop the pillaging.
If Democrats set out this condition clearly but Trump won’t agree, the consequences will be on Trump and the Republicans. They run the government now. They are the ones who are engaging in, or are complicit in, the wanton destruction now taking place.
This is an opportunity for the public to learn what Trump and Musk are doing, and why it’s illegal and unconstitutional.
In 1996, when Bill Clinton refused to go along with Newt Gingrich’s plan to cripple the federal government, causing the government to shut down for a month, Clinton wasn’t blamed. Gingrich was blamed.
If you live in a state with a Democratic senator, please phone them right now and tell them not to vote for the continuing resolution that gives Trump and Musk free rein to continue shutting the government. The Capitol switchboard is (202) 224-3121. A switchboard operator will connect you directly with the Senate office you request.
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Sanders Says Senate Should Probe DOGE and Subpoena Musk
"My constituents in Vermont and constituents all over this country want to know what the hell is going on with the federal government right now," the democratic socialist senator said.
Mar 06, 2025
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.)—the ranking member of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions—on Thursday urged the panel to launch an investigation into the Department of Government Efficiency and its de facto chief, Elon Musk, "the richest man in the world, to testify about his plans for running the federal government."
"I think everybody on this committee and the people of America understand who is running the government, and it's not going to be the secretary of labor," Sanders said during Thursday's HELP committee hearing on the confirmation of Keith Sonderling, Republican U.S. President Donald Trump's nominee for deputy labor secretary.
"We must find out what is going on in the federal government. And the way we do that is bringing Mr. Musk before this committee."
"With all due respect to President Trump's nominees, the... person who is running the government right now is Elon Musk," Sanders asserted.
"Mr. Musk has taken it upon himself, with the support of President Trump, to virtually dismantle the United States government," the senator said.
Sanders noted various attacks on agencies, including efforts to oust over 80,000 employees at the Department of Veterans Affairs and get rid of half of the Social Security Administration's employees, "at a time when Social Security is now grossly understaffed."
"Mr. Musk has ordered [the Department of Health and Human Services], the Department of Labor, and the Department of Education to fire employees, hand over confidential and sensitive data, and defy judicial orders," he added.
"My constituents in Vermont and constituents all over this country want to know what the hell is going on with the federal government right now," Sanders said. "And it's not going to be the next deputy secretary of labor who is going to tell them."
"So if we are serious... about our oversight responsibilities, we must find out what is going on in the federal government," he added. "And the way we do that is bringing Mr. Musk before this committee."
Sanders' call for an investigation into DOGE and subpoena for Musk came on the same day that Trump convened an in-person Cabinet meeting during which he clarified that the department secretaries are in charge of their agencies, not Musk. Multiple administration officials toldPolitico that "Musk was empowered to make recommendations to the departments but not to issue unilateral decisions on staffing and policy."
Musk was in the room for the meeting. As Politico reported:
The president's message represents the first significant move to narrow Musk's mandate. According to Trump's new guidance, DOGE and its staff should play an advisory role—but Cabinet secretaries should make final decisions on personnel, policy, and the pacing of implementation.
Musk joined the conversation and indicated he was on board with Trump's directive. According to one person familiar with the meeting, Musk acknowledged that DOGE had made some missteps—a message he shared earlier this week with members of Congress.
"As the secretaries learn about, and understand, the people working for the various departments, they can be very precise as to who will remain, and who will go," Trump later explained on his Truth Social platform. "We say the 'scalpel' rather than the 'hatchet.' The combination of them, Elon, DOGE, and other great people will be able to do things at a historic level."
Since its launch, DOGE has been plagued by statistical and accounting mistakes, as well as overzealous and errant firings of thousands of critical government workers, including people in charge of nuclear and air traffic safety and pandemic response.
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