Reuters: US Senator Warren demands Medicare nominee Dr. Oz sever industry ties

President Donald Trump's nominee to lead the agency overseeing Medicare should divest financial ties to healthcare and pharmaceutical companies that could benefit from his policy decisions, Democratic U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren said on Wednesday.

Television personality and surgeon Dr. Mehmet Oz is scheduled to appear on Friday before the Senate Finance Committee, on which Warren sits. The panel will hold a confirmation hearing for his nomination to be administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, a wide-reaching agency with annual spending of $2.6 trillion.

In a letter addressed to him seen by Reuters, Warren called on Oz to divest from his financial holdings related to industries regulated by the agency and commit to strong ethics safeguards.

Oz owns healthcare stocks in UnitedHealth Group (UNH.N), which administers Medicare Advantage plans, and drugmakers Abbvie (ABBV.N), and Eli Lilly (LLY.N), which manufacture drugs his agency negotiates prices for, his latest ethics disclosure, shows.

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