- Are there gonna be people in this country
who don't get a ventilator if they need one?
Are you concerned that the actual physical equipment
that is needed to serve the people
who will get sick is out there?
Can you reassure everyone tonight
that there is not a shortage of ventilators or ICU units?
- And that's why the president has taken
such bold and decisive action, right?
- [PJ] That's Seema Verma,
the administrator
for Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services,
That's because in March,
she was appointed to Trump's coronavirus taskforce.
So, how did she land this dream job
of staring at the president's back?
Let's find out.
I'm PJ Evans, and this is a story about Seema Verma.
She was born in 1970 in Portsmouth, Virginia,
the same birthplace as Missy Elliott.
There must've been something in the water,
because Verma would, too, get her freak on
in the form of rejecting her family's politics.
Her father, Jugal Verma, said,
After graduating from Johns Hopkins University
with a master's degree in public health,
Verma was on her way
In 2001, she founded the health policy consulting firm SVC.
She worked with Republican governors in Indiana,
like Mitch Daniels and Mike Pence, on Medicaid measures.
Verma would later take advantage
of a provision in the Social Security Act
that gives states wiggle room
to implement an alternative plan
that would still further the objective of Medicaid,
which is to provide health care to poor people.
In Indiana, she teamed up with Mike Pence
to put in place an expansion program
called Healthy Indiana Plan 2.0.
It expanded Medicaid to childless adults,
but it, in turn, put many low-income folks at risk.
Physicians for a National Health Care Program wrote,
It was punitive.
If people failed to pay their premiums,
which seems needlessly cruel.
Verma's company also consulted
on the Medicaid expansion provision
of other red states, like Kentucky.
It required people to engage in work activity
for a specific number of hours each week.
According to the waiver,
able-bodied adults under 64 years of age
would have to take part in things
like unpaid volunteer work, employment, or job searching
in order to receive health insurance.
Studies have shown that work requirements, like Verma's,
result in greater losses of health insurance
and disproportionately affect veterans and minorities.
With this record, naturally,
Verma was tapped by a thrice married former game show host
who's been accused of rape
to head up the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services,
or CMS, in March of 2017.
- Our footprint on the United States health care system
is so significant that everything we do
has a large ripple effect on every American.
- [PJ] Verma's agency has a budget of $1 trillion a year
and oversees 130 million Americans' health insurance plans
and many of the provisions her former company consulted on.
She recused herself from issues with every state
she worked with while at SVC:
Arkansas, Kentucky, Indiana, Iowa,
Ohio, South Carolina, and Virginia.
Her office gave permission to most of these states
to implement work requirements
in order to receive benefits, like Medicaid.
A year after her appointment,
Verma made a speech in San Francisco
- Ideas like Medicare For All
would only serve to hurt and divert focus from seniors.
All the while expanding the regulatory burden
and misaligned and perverse incentives
of a government-run system.
In essence, Medicare for All would become Medicare for none.
- [PJ] Later that year, Verma tweeted,
along with a photo of someone
wearing a Medicare for All shirt.
She followed up in another tweet,
Her repeated attacks on the concept
of giving free health care to every person as a right
ended up costing her a complaint,
alleging she violated the Hatch Act,
which forbids most executive branch employees
from taking part in political activities.
However, the Office of Special Counsel quickly shot it down
and found Verma not to be in violation of the act.
She may hate free health care,
but she has a record of asking for taxpayer dollars
for pretty much everything else.
While she was giving that speech
about how bad free health care is,
she had all of her jewelry stolen from her luggage
in a parked SUV.
She immediately sought to have taxpayers cough up $47,000
for her stolen jewelry,
which allegedly included
a $5,900 Ivanka Trump branded pendant
and $325 moisturizer.
It's almost like she wanted to have people pay
for something totally random and bad that happened to her.
The federal health department reimbursed Verma $2,852.40
of the $47,000 she sought,
which could buy her at least three jars
of her ridiculously expensive moisturizer, probably.
But this wasn't the last time she'd get herself
in contentious territory with taxpayer dollars.
Months later, in 2019, Politico notes, Verma
Verma approved $3 million dollars of federal funds
on paying these communications consultants
and other PR initiatives to burnish her public image.
Federal health officials worked closely with consultants
to try and get Verma into magazines like Glamour.
In emails obtained by Politico,
the consultants recommended that CMS lobby,
Verma denied she was using taxpayer money
for publicity purposes, which would be illegal.
She said she was only contacting consultants, quote,
It's unclear if Glamour magazine has been on the forefront
of American health care issues in the past.
Verma, who is on Trump's coronavirus task force,
is now in the spotlight as a novel coronavirus,
that causes a disease dubbed COVID-19, sweeps the country.
As of March 31st, there have been
Verma and the Trump administration
are now doing a complete 180, reversing course,
and asking the hospitals and systems
they have long been going to war with for some help.
Although a recent Trump proposal,
released at the beginning of the coronavirus outbreak,
did ask for Disaster Medical Systems
and Emergency Operations,
it sought an $18 million cut
to the Hospital Preparedness Program.
In light of COVID-19, Politico notes,
Verma is on the frontline of controlling the pandemic
and approving funds for the hospitals to control it.
There are only 100,000 ICU beds across the country.
And so far, it hasn't always been easy
to get Verma to be completely transparent
about the state of America's necessary supplies.
- You're confident that if we had a huge uptick
in the need for that specific piece of equipment,
that we could get new ventilators into ICU units quickly?
- You know, Tucker, I don't want to make
drastic predictions here, right?
'Cause this situation is changing every single day
and based on the information we have,
we know that we have to be aggressive.
- When Trump declared the U.S. a state of emergency,
states were able to expand Medicaid to low-income people
so they can get treatment and tests for the virus
without all the red tape Verma worked so hard
to keep in place.
If only Verma cared about uninsured people
as much as she cares about uninsured tacky jewelry.
Hey, thanks for watching "Who Is?"
Did you know we have a podcast now too,
on "Who Is", the podcast?
I'll dive deep into the fascinating lives
of the people who run things,
who's decisions impact every aspect of our lives.
How did they get where they are today,
and knowing that, what might they do next?
From politicians to the ultra-rich,
to military contractors and monarchs and media moguls,
I'll introduce you to the reporters and experts
who know these real-life world molders best.
Sharp-eyed observers and confidants who observe our subjects
as they make the decisions that define our every day lives.
To see more, hit the link,
or search, "Who Is" on the iHeart Radio app,
or wherever you get your podcasts.
And for more of the video series you know and love,
be sure to check out the Snapchat versions
and our series playlists on YouTube and Facebook.