NPR

By: Jake Harper

President-elect Trump picked Seema Verma as the next Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services administrator to be in charge of the different programs such as Medicare, Medicaid, and Children’s Health Insurance Program. Given her experience with Medicaid in Indiana with Gov. Mike Pence, many healthcare experts, like Joan Alker, hope that at least they continue working with a positive relationship. However, healthcare experts are also concerned with the decisions that will be taken by Verma with regards to the Medicaid program.

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Policy analyst Joan Alker, with the Georgetown Center for Children and Families, finds it worrisome. “It is a good thing that she has experience with Medicaid and it is a positive that Gov. Pence worked with Ms. Verma to advance a version of Medicaid expansion,” she says. “But I think if you look at the totality of the Trump administration’s picks today — Congressman Price as well as Ms. Verma — this represents potentially a very damaging and chaotic restructuring of the Medicaid program.” Price has advocated severely cutting Medicaid funding, and Alker worries that cuts and more stringent requirements under Verma would mean people will lose the health insurance.

“The Healthy Indiana Plan has occurred in the context of generous federal funding,” she says. “And I think some of that is on deck to go away.”

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