Before her time in the leadership, Jennifer Granholm, former senator Joe Biden’s energy secretary, had thrice as much time to withdraw from opposing businesses as Dr. Mehmet Oz, but the media coverage of Oz is much less good.
The brand doctor’s financial interests are being raised in alarm as he assumes control of the world’s Medicare and Medicaid programs as two articles from this month’s New York Times were published. The most recent narrative out Monday tales,” How His Millions Collide With Medicare”.
The Times reported that an examination of his numerous fiscal interests revealed coziness with health care providers that lawmakers have already raised in questioning his self-reliance. The Times even revealed opaque ties to the industries he may immediately regulate.
The Pennsylvania physician’s recent financial disclosure was referenced in the paper’s reference to his confirmation hearing for his appointment as the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services ( CMS ) administrator. The New York Times is providing Democrat lawmakers with weapons to portray Oz, a long-time variety of nighttime television and failed Republican presidential candidate, as a serpent oil salesman who is desperate to profit from his governmental role.
He has allegedly feigned dietary supplements on his present and on social media, frequently without making any mention of his economic interests, earning tens of millions of dollars. He has been paid by health system businesses and health-related enterprises, and his money was invested in a dizzying assortment of companies”, said the Times. ” Many of those companies may be affected by any choices he would create in the state post, and many of those companies already receive agency funding.”
However, Oz made the regular pledge to withdraw from the numerous businesses that the New York Times has mentioned as a possible conflict in his financial disclosure, which was completed last week. The CMS candidate listed the web supplement business, iHerb, first on the kind with a promise to sell his holdings within 90 days of confirmation. However, according to morality “experts” quoted by the Times, the language in the report “held open the possibility that Dr. Oz may keep some iHerb property even after the company is in its place until the company goes public or is bought”
A Federalist analysis of the financial disclosure filed by recent Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm reveals that the former Biden official’s pledge to divest from the electric vehicle company, Proterra, was almost identical. Except Granholm, whose holdings in Proterra became a scandal for the administration, gave herself 180 days, or twice as long, to leave her stock in the company.
” The Rip van Winkles at the New York Times have a lot to catch up on after their four-year nap”, said Michael Chamberlain, the director of the ethics watchdog Protect the Public’s Trust. In 2021, Biden Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm held similar financial responsibilities, including her appointment as a board member of Proterra, an electric vehicle component manufacturer.
When President Biden and other administration officials promoted the company during a tour of its Greenville, South Carolina plant, Granholm” still held more than$ 1 million in Proterra stock options,” according to Chamberlain.
” Yet, the Times claims this provision in Dr. Oz’s agreement is ‘ murky,'” Chamberlain told The Federalist. ” To this day, the same newspaper, according to both Google and its own website, hasn’t seen fit to mention Ms. Granholm and Proterra in the same article”.
Granholm’s Proterra investments were likely to bring in millions of dollars from the administration’s energy programs, so the House Oversight Committee opened an investigation. In a glaring conflict of interest reported by the Washington Free Beacon, President Biden personally promoted the company while his energy secretary still held lucrative shares of Proterra stock.
Proterra declared chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2023 after receiving millions in state subsidies.
