Healthcare Finance News
Seema Verma was picked by President-elect Trump to administer CMS, given her experience with Medicaid during the past years in Indiana with Governor and Vice President-elect Mike Pence. However, many healthcare experts, such as Joan Alker and Susan Jo Thomas, are very concerned as to what changes Verma will be making nationally to programs such as Medicaid and Medicare.
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Joan Alker with the Georgetown Center for Children and Families agrees, and finds it worrisome. “It is a good thing that she has experience with Medicaid and it is a positive that Governor Pence worked with Ms. Verma to advance a version of Medicaid expansion,” she said. “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 mean people will lose the health insurance.
“The Healthy Indiana Plan has occurred in the context of generous federal funding,” she said. “And I think some of that is on deck to go away.”
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