A Tuesday morning hearing dedicated to Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s proposed 2026 budget led Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Jake Auchincloss (D-Mass.) to question his stances on two Trump appointees at the agency with apparent conflicts of interest.
One appointee, a former HHS DOGE staffer named Brad Smith, now runs a for-profit medical company. The other, Calley Means, is still in the Trump administration. Prior to that, he co-founded a company that sells medical equipment that can be bought with pretax dollars.
About halfway through the hearing, Ocasio-Cortez asked Kennedy what proper ethical conduct looks like for a public servant.
Kennedy assured her that, as is legally required, he’s completely divested from what might be considered financial conflicts of interest, other than crypto.
“I own bitcoin,” he acknowledged. Asked if he has any other assets, Kennedy said he went through the process with the Office of Government Ethics to review a few “very minor” interests.
The New York lawmaker devoted the rest of her time to calling out the for-profit medical industry — in particular, UnitedHealthcare, which is set to make an extra $25 billion on Medicare Advantage plans next year under the Trump administration and Kennedy’s oversight.
She said the health care industry, including UnitedHealthcare, has “been found to be defrauding public dollars, of more than $80 billion a year” and noted the company is under investigation by Trump’s Justice Department.
“If we’re making decisions around waste, fraud and abuse ― this is the largest source of waste, fraud and abuse of public dollars,” Ocasio-Cortez began, before asking Kennedy: “If that’s the case, why did you nearly double the rate that taxpayer dollars give for-profit insurance companies like United next year?”
In April, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, an agency within HHS, announced that reimbursement rates for Medicare Advantage in 2026 would increase 5.06%, more than double the 2.2% increase proposed under the Biden administration. United’s stock ticked sharply higher on the news.
Kennedy asked for clarification. “How did I do that?”
After Ocasio-Cortez’s time expired, Auchincloss picked up where she left off, accusing Kennedy of allowing individuals with interests in the for-profit medical industry to help set government health policy.
Auchincloss then answered the “how” question that Kennedy had asked earlier.
“I actually have an answer for you,” he said as an aide held aloft a diagram detailing Kennedy’s relationship with the two Trump appointees.
“The answer is Mr. Brad Smith,” said Auchincloss, pointing to Smith’s picture on the board. “He was in charge of DOGE health care, and his biggest investors in his company, Main Street Health, are the Medicare Advantage organizations, the five biggest health insurance corporations in America.”
“They’re his investors. He owns this company, they own him, and while he was [at HHS], he set the rules in reimbursements for [the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services] to hook up his investors,” the lawmaker said.
“So, I’m gonna answer the question that you asked Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. It is because of conflicts of interest.”
Auchincloss also called out Means, a White House adviser and founder of Truemed, a company that sells health supplements and medical devices that can be purchased using pretax dollars.
Means has played a major role in Kennedy’s “Make America Healthy Again” agenda, said Auchincloss, and has tremendous power over both Medicare and Medicaid.
Kennedy declined to say whether Means should be transparent about his conflicts of interest, as Auchincloss has demanded in a letter to Means.
“That’s between you and him,” said Kennedy, who argued that “pharmaceutical companies have been in the White House for generations” and no one complained.
Neither Means nor Smith immediately responded to requests for comment.