Seema Verma

Verma served as vice president of the Health & Hospital Corporation of Marion County,[8] and worked at the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials in Washington, D. C.[9]

Verma founded health policy consulting firm SVC, Inc., in June 2001. She was president and CEO of the company, which has worked with state insurance agencies and public health agencies in preparation for the implementation of the Affordable Care Act, and assisted Indiana and Kentucky, as well as other states, in the design of Medicaid expansion programs under the ACA.[9] In her work with Indiana, Ohio, and Kentucky, she developed Medicaid reform programs under the Section 1115 waiver process.[10][11]

Verma's Trump transition portrait

In 2014, concerns were raised over a potential conflict of interest arising from Verma's dual roles as both a health care consultant for Indiana and an employee of a Hewlett-Packard division that is among Indiana's largest Medicaid vendors.[8] As of 2014, SVC, Inc., had been awarded over $3.5 million in Indiana state contracts, while Verma was concurrently employed with Hewlett-Packard, earning over one million dollars during a period when the company had secured five hundred million dollars in state contracts.[12]

Verma speaks on the coronavirus pandemic from the White House press briefing room on April 19, 2020

On November 29, 2016, President-elect Donald Trump nominated Verma to serve as administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the agency that oversees Medicare, Medicaid, and the insurance markets.[13] On March 13, 2017, the United States Senate confirmed her nomination in a 55–43 vote.[14] One of her first actions was to send a letter to the nation's governors, urging them to impose insurance premiums for Medicaid, charge Medicaid recipients for emergency room visits, and encourage recipients to obtain employment or job training.[15]

On July 25, 2018, Verma gave a speech[16] in San Francisco in which she criticized proposals for "Medicare for all". She claimed that single-payer health care would "destroy" Medicare, which provides insurance for elderly people, and lead to "Medicare for None".[17] The speech and her repeated attacks on Medicare-for-all proposals led to a lawsuit alleging that her actions violated the Hatch Act.[18]

Politico reported that Verma clashed with HHS Secretary Alex Azar over which plans will replace Obamacare, and who will get credit for those efforts, according to anonymous administration officials.[19] Verma in turn accused Azar of "sex discrimination;" these allegations were debunked after an extensive investigation.[20] Reportedly, this was not the first clash Verma had with her superiors, as Verma hired a lawyer to file a claim of a "hostile work environment" against HHS Secretary Tom Price.[21] Prior to her tenure at CMS, the IndyStar reported that Verma fought with Indiana Secretary Debra Minott leading to Minott losing her job.[22]

On March 2, 2020, the office of Vice President Mike Pence announced Verma's addition to White House Coronavirus Task Force.[23]

In the weeks leading up to the 2020 election, she pushed Medicare officials to finalize a plan to $200 cards, branded with Trump's name, for Medicare recipients to use on drugs.[24] She pushed the officials to complete this before the November 3 election.[24] The taxpayer-funded plan was estimated to cost $7.9 billion and draw from Medicare's trust fund.[24]

In March 2019, Politico reported that in her role as CMS administrator, Verma approved communications subcontracts worth more than $2 million of taxpayer funds on Republican-connected communications consultants and other expenses to boost her visibility and public image. Included in the consultants' work were proposals to have Verma featured in magazines like Glamour and have her invited to prestigious events like the Kennedy honors to increase her public persona.[25][26] In July 2020, the HHS Inspector General reported that Verma spent more than $5M in taxpayer funds to do communications work, and to help raise her profile. The report, a result of a 15-month investigation, concluded that Verma violated federal contracting rules: "CMS improperly administered the contracts and created improper employer-employee relationships between CMS and the contractors".[4][27][5]

Verma spent more than $3.5 million on Republican Party-aligned consultants to promote her. These consultants were paid to help her write tweets and speeches, polish her profile, and broker meetings with companies and high-profile individuals (including other members of government). Verma spent nearly $3,000 on throwing a "Girl's Night" party in her honor, $13,000 to promote Verma to win awards and appear on prestigious panels. The consultants provided her with talking points on repealing the Affordable Care Act in 2017, and helped her write a 2018 opinion column under her name in the Washington Post arguing for Medicaid work requirements.[5]

One of the outside consultants that Verma paid was Marcus Barlow, who had been her spokesperson at her former consulting firm SVC.[28] He worked on three separate contracts for the CMS, earning between $209-$230 an hour in the contracts.[28] Even after the HHS Inspector General and Congressional investigations had concluded, Verma continued to bring Barlow to official CMS functions as a media aide, including a December 2020 tour of the White House.[29]

On August 20, 2018, Verma filed a claim requesting that taxpayers reimburse her for jewelry she said was stolen on a work-related trip to San Francisco. Although she requested $47,000, including a $325 claim for moisturizer and a $5,900 Ivanka Trump-brand pendant, she ultimately received $2,852.40 in reimbursement.[17]