Trump Stands by Embattled
Medicare and Medicaid Chief
Seema Verma is under fire for seeking taxpayer reimbursement for stolen
property, part of a series of unflattering reports about her and the
president’s other top health official, Alex M. Azar II.
Seema Verma, the administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid
Services, requested that taxpayers reimburse her for $47,000 of stolen
property, including more than $40,000 of jewelry.Credit...T.J. Kirkpatrick for
The New York Times
The reimbursement request, reported in Politico over the weekend, was the
latest revelation in a string of reports that have portrayed the upper echelons
of the Department of Health and Human Services as divided on policy and
personality, and roiled by expenditures that have come under scrutiny.
A particular sore point has been the decision by Ms. Verma, the administrator
of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, a trillion-dollar agency
within the Health and Human Services Department, to spend millions of taxpayer
dollars on contracts with communications consultants, in part to raise her
public profile. The contracts are now under review by the department’s
inspector general.
Seema Verma is under fire for seeking taxpayer reimbursement for stolen property, part of a series of unflattering reports about her and the president’s other top health official, Alex M. Azar II.
Seema Verma, the administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, requested that taxpayers reimburse her for $47,000 of stolen property, including more than $40,000 of jewelry.Credit...T.J. Kirkpatrick for The New York Times
The reimbursement request, reported in Politico over the weekend, was the latest revelation in a string of reports that have portrayed the upper echelons of the Department of Health and Human Services as divided on policy and personality, and roiled by expenditures that have come under scrutiny.