Mehmet Oz says a Treasury Department review just found more than $20 billion of suspected health-care money laundering, on top of the $100 billion in Medicare and Medicaid fraud his agency already estimates.
Most fixes for an entitlement program racing toward insolvency involve cutting benefits or raising taxes. Oz's pitch, delivered live from a noisy Republican convention hall, was that catching fraud and pushing prevention over treatment could buy the Medicare trust fund another decade without touching either.
"That would double the life expectancy of the Medicare trust fund."
Oz runs the federal agency that administers both programs, and spent his earlier career as a practicing heart surgeon — a background he draws on directly when he says his own operations rarely changed a patient's overall health as much as a few proactive steps taken weeks earlier would have.
I listened to the full segment so you can skip it.
Here are the 6 takeaways that matter.
👤 Guest: Mehmet Oz, Administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services and a former practicing heart surgeon
🎙️ Host: Kailey Leinz, Washington-based co-anchor of Bloomberg Television's Balance of Power
📰 Published: 9 September 2026, on the Bloomberg Talks podcast feed
🔴 YouTube | 🟣 Apple Podcasts | ⏱️ 9 min
Key Takeaways
The administration's most-favored-nation drug deals produced the largest U.S. prescription-price drop in 63 years, Oz says
26 companies covering 90% of branded drugs sold in pharmacies have signed on
Medicare now sells GLP-1 weight-loss drugs to eligible beneficiaries for $50 a month, down from $1,200
Medicaid uptake has lagged because governors have to balance budgets against the cost of covering more patients
A Treasury Department review just found more than $20 billion of likely health-care money laundering, on top of an estimated $100 billion in Medicare and Medicaid fraud
Recovering it would roughly double how long the Medicare trust fund lasts, Oz says — from about six years to 12 to 13
The share of Americans who can easily access their own medical records rose from 5% to 60% in a year
Two-thirds of Medicare and Medicaid's roughly $2 trillion in annual spending goes to chronic disease, which Oz ties to obesity
A question about paying for clinical AI went unanswered because convention-hall noise drowned it out
As a heart surgeon, Oz says his own operations rarely changed a patient's overall health as much as steps taken weeks earlier would have
1. The Most-Favored Nation Deal
Asked what he would tell Republican voters worried about health care affordability, Oz opened with a specific claim about drug prices rather than a general defense of the administration.
"We're making progress on healthcare affordability, evidenced by the fact that we have the largest drop in pharmaceutical drug prices for consumers in 63 years." He credited the change to the president personally getting involved, rather than to any broader market shift
Oz said the president got personally involved, telling his staff he would not tolerate "one in three Americans leaving empty-handed" from a pharmacy with an unfilled prescription
The administration found that U.S. patients pay roughly three times more than in Europe or Asia for the exact same drugs, often made in the same U.S. factories — the discovery Oz said led to the most-favored-nation pricing push
The top 26 pharmaceutical companies, covering 90% of all branded drugs sold in U.S. pharmacies, have agreed to most-favored-nation pricing — matching whatever price they charge overseas. Oz said this was done without price controls: "No more global freeloading"
The host noted Oz had just been in the Oval Office with the president announcing nine new drug-pricing deals, and asked if more were coming
Ninety percent of branded products are already covered, so most of the pricing work is done, Oz said. What remains is getting Congress to codify the deals, which currently run only to the end of the administration
He pointed viewers to TrumpRx.gov, which lists the negotiated prices, including for GLP-1 weight-loss drugs — "the so-called fat shots"
2. $50 GLP-1s, Not Medicaid
The host turned to Medicaid coverage of GLP-1 weight-loss drugs, which had drawn interest from only a handful of states, and asked why — a question lost the first time in convention-hall applause and repeated once Oz asked for it again.
Medicare now sells GLP-1 medications to eligible beneficiaries for $50 a month, down from $1,200. Oz said Medicaid uptake is different because state governors have to balance their own budgets
Governors are narrowing eligibility — for example to patients with comorbidities like diabetes — because broader coverage looks too expensive without a clear payoff, in Oz's telling of their reasoning
His argument to those governors is the same one behind the Medicare program: treating obesity now saves money later. "It probably drives two-thirds of all the health care expenses," he said of obesity's role in overall health spending
He framed the national payoff as broader than the program's cost, saying the goal was "making America look more like gazelles"
3. Why Prices Aren't Public
The host said Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. had promised the details of the new drug deals would be made public for transparency, and asked why they weren't yet. Convention-hall noise kept Oz from hearing the question clearly the first time.
Oz's answer pointed to TrumpRx.gov as the transparency tool already live, giving the public access to negotiated prices
Congress is working on codifying the administration's transparency decisions, he said, without giving a timeline for when specific deal terms would be published
He said more information is coming within the next month, including a rule extending price transparency beyond medications to hospitals
4. $100B Fraud, Longer Fund
Returning to the taxpayer-burden question, the host put to Oz outside projections showing Medicare heading toward insolvency by 2033 and forcing cuts by then if the problem isn't fixed — and said that even all the fraud Oz has pointed to isn't enough on its own to close that gap. She asked what the bigger fix is.
Oz offered two solutions, starting with fraud. "We estimate about $100 billion of fraud," he said
A Treasury Department review, released the day of the interview, identified more than $20 billion in suspected money laundering and fraud in health care by examining bank accounting data: "$20-plus billion, which they're identifying just looking at the accounting from banks that they believe represents money laundering and fraud in the healthcare space"
Recovering that money would roughly double the Medicare trust fund's runway, Oz said. "That would double the life expectancy of the Medicare trust fund." Instead of insolvency in about six years, he said the fund would last 12 to 13 years longer — which he called "an eternity" for planning out the trust fund's finances
5. Records Access: 5% to 60%
The second solution Oz offered was technology — specifically, getting patients access to their own medical information so they can make better decisions about their own care.
He argued American patients' access to their own health information lags well behind the technology already inside hospitals, even though the devices and systems doctors use have kept up
The share of Americans who can easily access their own medical records rose from 5% last year to 60% this year, Oz said, calling it a foundation for patients to get guidance on which doctors, institutions and treatments to choose
Two-thirds, at least, of Medicare and Medicaid's roughly $2 trillion in spending goes to chronic disease, he said. The U.S. is "twice as expensive per capita as other countries," he added, because Americans are "twice as fat"
6. Lost in the Convention Noise
The host asked how the administration is thinking about paying for clinical artificial intelligence. Oz couldn't hear the question over the crowd behind him.
After two attempts to repeat the question, Oz gave up on hearing it. "We're better off talking by text. I'm really sorry"
He then answered a related but different question — how to make health care affordable generally — without having heard the AI question at all. His answer: "I do think the biggest answer of all is to take advantage of both the ability to win the battle for health in our kitchens, our living rooms, our bedrooms, as opposed to try to win the battle in the ER and the OR"
He tied this back to his own career, noting he would speak about heart surgery later that day. He said his own work as a surgeon "didn't change the overarching health of the country" as much as he had hoped
A blocked artery he can fix in surgery is often the result of choices made months earlier that a patient could have changed. "Yes, I'm saving someone's life because they've got coronary artery blockages, but they could have avoided the need for me to use my scalpel on their chest by taking a few proactive steps months or even weeks before I intervene."
Bonus Insights
The interview ran live from the floor of a Republican political convention, and Oz opened by confirming he would take the stage himself later that day — first on affordability, and separately, in his words, to "speak about heart surgery a little bit"
Crowd noise interrupted the interview throughout: Oz asked twice for a question to be repeated, apologized three separate times for not hearing clearly, and eventually proposed finishing the conversation "by text" instead
Oz's bottom line is that Medicare's finances turn less on finding new revenue than on collecting what the program is already owed and spending less on late-stage treatment: recovering the fraud Treasury has flagged would roughly double the trust fund's runway on its own, and getting Americans in front of their own health data before they need a scalpel is, in his telling, the more durable fix.
Products, Companies & Tools Mentioned
TrumpRx.gov (The federal price-lookup site Oz repeatedly pointed to, covering both branded drug prices and the GLP-1 weight-loss drugs newly priced under the most-favored-nation deals)
U.S. Treasury Department (Source of the fraud figure Oz cited on air — a same-day bank-accounting review it said found more than $20 billion in likely health-care money laundering)
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