As Oz Endorses Medicaid Work Requirements, Risk to MCOs Comes Into Focus

Mar 21
Mar 21, 2025

While Mehmet Oz, M.D., was noncommittal about his stance on Medicaid funding cuts, the nominee for CMS administrator during a March 14 Senate Finance Committee hearing voiced clear support for requiring some Medicaid beneficiaries to prove employment to keep receiving benefits.

According to one Wall Street analyst, such strong backing for Medicaid work requirements bodes ill for managed care insurers — not just because of potential enrollment loss, but because it could also make the whole risk pool more expensive to cover.
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Leslie Small

Leslie has been working in journalism since 2009 and reporting on the health care industry since 2014. She has covered the many ups and downs of the Affordable Care Act exchanges, the failed health insurer mega-mergers, and hundreds of other storylines spanning subjects such as Medicaid managed care, Medicare Advantage, employer-sponsored insurance, and prescription drug coverage. As the managing editor of Health Plan Weekly and Radar on Drug Benefits, she writes and edits for both publications while overseeing a small team of reporters who also focus on the managed care sector. Before joining AIS Health, she was a senior editor for the e-newsletter Fierce Health Payer, and she started her career as a copy editor at multiple local newspapers. She graduated with a dual degree in journalism and political science from Penn State University.