Dr Mehmet Oz reportedly told federal staffers that artificial intelligence models may be better than frontline human physicians in his first all-staff meeting this week.
Oz told staffers that if a patient went to the doctor for a diabetes diagnosis it would cost roughly $100 an hour, compared with $2 an hour for an AI visit, according to unnamed sources who spoke to Wired magazine. He added that patients may prefer an AI avatar.
Oz also spent a portion of his first meeting with employees arguing they had a “patriotic duty” to remain healthy, with the goal of decreasing costs to the health insurance system. He made a similar argument at his confirmation hearing.
“I think it is our patriotic duty to be healthy,” Oz said in response to a question from the Republican senator Todd Young of Indiana. “First of all, it feels a heck of a lot better … But it also costs a lot of money to take care of sick people who are sick because of lifestyle choices.”
Oz was recently confirmed by the Senate to lead the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS) – one of the largest and thorniest of the federal government agencies. CMS oversees $1.5tn in annual spending, health insurance for nearly half of Americans and incredibly dense regulations that underpin much of America’s health insurance system.
His confirmation came as the federal Department of Health and Human Services is slated to lose roughly a quarter of its workforce amid cuts by the HHS secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, and the billionaire Elon Musk’s unofficial “department of government efficiency” (Doge).
CMS has seen a relatively small portion of the cuts – 300 workers compared with a total loss of 20,000. However, Republicans are proposing huge cuts to Medicaid, the health insurance program for the low-income overseen by CMS, which insures roughly 71 million people. Republicans are seeking to cut the program to pay for tax cuts that overwhelmingly benefit the wealthy.
The 64-year-old was a surgeon before hosting The Dr Oz Show, a spinoff of Oprah Winfrey’s talkshow. He hosted the program for more than a decade, and ended it to seek an open Senate seat in Pennsylvania. He lost to the Democrat John Fetterman in 2022.
Oz has long been criticized for his endorsement of unproven cures – among them “magic” weight loss supplements and his endorsement of hydroxychloroquine to treat Covid-19.
