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CMS nominee Verma clears Senate Finance hurdle

Publish date: March 2, 2017

Seema Verma has moved one step closer to becoming the administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.

The Senate Finance Committee voted 13-12 on March 2 to approve Ms. Verma’s nomination after a delayed vote the day before. The vote, conducted during a meeting off the floor, was a straight party-line vote, with 13 Republicans voting for Ms. Verma and 12 Democrats voting against. One proxy vote was not counted into the final tally per Senate rules.

Her nomination will now be considered by the full Senate.

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) praised Ms. Verma as a qualified leader who will help improve CMS.

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Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah)

“We need experienced and responsible leadership at the helm of our federal agencies and CMS is no exception,” Sen. Hatch said in a statement. “The challenges plaguing both Medicare and Medicaid require a strong partnership between the administration and Congress to improve these programs and help enact the necessary reforms to ensure their solvency for future generations. Ms. Verma will help facilitate that partnership and as we work to repeal and replace Obamacare; she will play a vital role in realigning the focus on patient-centered solutions. I look forward to her nomination being considered by the full Senate.”

Senate Finance Committee Ranking Member Ron Wyden, (D-Ore.) denounced Ms. Verma, stressing that she failed to adequately answer questions during her nomination hearing and has presented no clear vision of her plans as the next CMS administrator.

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.)

“Without any clear indication what her own views are, what I’m left to conclude is that Ms. Verma shares the views of many in her party, including her new boss if she is confirmed, Secretary Tom Price,” Sen. Wyden said in a statement. “Their proposals say that Medicare’s guarantee of defined health benefits should be ended, that Medicaid should be cut to the bone, and that insurance companies should be put in charge and allowed to use loopholes to once again discriminate against people with expensive preexisting conditions.”

During her nomination hearing on Feb. 16, Ms. Verma came under fire for past consulting agreements with states while working for Hewlett Packard, a company that had financial interests in the health programs she designed. The issue was raised again during a preliminary vote by the Finance Committee on March 1.

“Ms. Verma was on both sides of the deal, helping manage the state’s health programs while being paid by vendors to those same programs,” Sen. Wyden said during the hearing. “I am concerned that if Ms. Verma is confirmed to lead CMS, where many of the companies she worked for are major vendors, there will not be adequate scrutiny of her past relationships with them, just as there wasn’t in Indiana.”

Ms. Verma previously said she never negotiated on behalf of Hewlett Packard and that the work she conducted for the states did not overlap with work she completed for HP.

“I hold honesty and integrity and adherence to a high ethical standard as part of my personal philosophy. That’s for me, I demand that from my employees, and I set that example for my own children,” she said during the Feb. 16 hearing. “We were never in a position where we were negotiating on behalf of HP or any other contractor with the state that we had a relationship with. If there was the potential [for a conflict], we would recuse ourselves.”

Ms. Verma’s nomination will now move to the full Senate. No date has yet been set for the vote.

agallegos@frontlinemedcom.com

On Twitter @legal_med

CMS nominee Verma clears Senate Finance hurdle

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