Tag Archives: Seema Verma

‘A Huge Deal’: Biden Rebuffs Georgia’s Medicaid Work Requirement—Last in US

“By ending work requirements in many states, Biden is erasing one of Trump’s cruelest legacies.”

By Kenny Stancil. Published 12-24-2021 by Common Dreams

Screenshot: CNN

After the White House on Thursday rejected a proposal to impose work requirements on Medicaid recipients in Georgia—the last state with a federal waiver permitting such restrictions—President Joe Biden received praise for “quietly erasing” one of his predecessor’s “cruelest legacies.”

“The announcement from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, delivered in a 79-page letter to Georgia’s health agency, also reversed a federal waiver allowing the state to charge premiums for the health insurance program for the poor,” according to the New York Times. Continue reading →

Advocates Sound Alarm Over Quiet Trump Era Move That Could Further Privatize Medicare

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“The Biden administration should immediately kill this toxic legacy of the former president.”

By Jake Johnson, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 3-13-2021

Seema Verma, administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services during the Trump administration. Photo: Paul Morigi/flickr/CC

A little-noticed scheme hatched in the late stages of the Trump presidency has consumer advocates and universal healthcare proponents warning about a creeping attempt to further privatize Medicare—an effort the Biden administration is being urged to stop in its tracks.

On December 3, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS)—then under the leadership of Seema Verma—unveiled an innocuous-sounding proposal titled the Geographic Direct Contracting Model (Geo) with the purported goal of delivering “Medicare beneficiaries value through better care and improved quality.” Continue reading →

‘Shameless Stunt’: Trump Reportedly Attempting to Raid Medicare Trust Fund to Pay for Drug Discount Cards With His Name on Them

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“There it is: Trump wants to steal billions from Medicare to pay for an illegal voter bribery scheme weeks before the election.”

By Jake Johnson, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 10-9-2020

Seema Verma, administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Photo: White House/flickr

Less than a month away from the November election, Trump administration officials are reportedly rushing to implement the president’s recent proposal to send $200 prescription drug discount cards to nearly 40 million Medicare recipients—an $8 billion plan that would be financed by dipping into the Medicare trust fund.

Politico reported Thursday that the administration is “seeking to finalize the plan as soon as Friday and send letters to 39 million Medicare beneficiaries next week, informing seniors of Trump’s new effort to lower their drug costs, although many seniors would not receive the actual cards until after the election.” While the design of the cards has yet to be finalized, officials are reportedly discussing ways to put Trump’s name on them. Continue reading →

‘People, Poor Disabled People in Particular, Are Going to Die’: Trump Takes Axe to Medicaid

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“Trump wants to destroy Medicaid while claiming to save it. This fiendish scheme is an Orwellian fable conjured up by the most shameless pack of liars to ever occupy our government.”

By Jake Johnson, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 1-30-2020

CMS Administrator Seema Verma with President Donald Trump in 2018. Photo: White House

The Trump administration on Thursday unveiled a plan allowing states to convert federal Medicaid funding into block grants, a longstanding conservative goal that critics warn could have deadly consequences for millions of vulnerable people who rely on the healthcare program as a major source of income.

Seema Verma, head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), announced the so-called “Healthy Adult Opportunity” initiative in a statement claiming the policy will “improve health outcomes and care” for low-income people. Continue reading →

‘Cruelty Is the Point’: Trump Takes Aim at Medicaid With Plan That Could Harm Millions

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“The president’s war on healthcare knows no bounds.”

By Jake Johnson, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 1-24-2020

President Donald Trump speaks during an event on kidney health at the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center on July 10, 2019 in Washington, D.C. Screenshot: YouTube

The Trump administration is reportedly planning to intensify its assault on Medicaid by granting certain states permission to convert federal funding for the program into block grants, a move critics slammed as a cruel and likely illegal attack on vulnerable people.

Politico reported Thursday that the plan, which could be finalized as early as next week, would allow the 37 states that expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act to seek waivers to convert funding into fixed sums that could limit states’ flexibility to increase spending in response to public need. Continue reading →

‘This Is Just Cruelty and Exclusion’: Amid Trump’s Attack on Poor, One Million Fewer Kids Receiving Medicaid and CHIP

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“This is not people reaching self-sufficiency,” warned Rep. Pramila Jayapal.

By Julia Conley, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 8-22-2019

The Trump administration’s aggressive efforts to monitor who is benefiting from government assistance programs have had what critics say is their desired effect—pushing more than a million children off Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program in less than two years.

Between December 2017 and June 2019, according to the New York Times, about three percent of children enrolled in Medicaid or CHIP were dropped from the program. Continue reading →

Nation Warned That Trump’s “Horrifying” Medicaid Pick Hired With “Express Purpose to Dismember” Program

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Mary Mayhew “destroyed Medicaid in Maine now she will destroy it in the whole country.”

By Jessica Corbett, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 10-15-2018

Maine’s former Health and Human Services Commissioner Mary Mayhew has been tapped to run Medicaid on a national level. Photo: WFVX

Provoking immediate warnings about what is now in store for the most vulnerable people in the United States, President Donald Trump on Monday reportedly tapped Maine’s former health commissioner Mary Mayhew—who was instrumental in Republican Gov. Paul LePage’s efforts to block Medicaid expansion in the state—to run the program at the federal level.

Critics such as Zak Ringelstein, a Democratic U.S. Senate candidate from Maine, rapidly denounced her appointment as “horrifying.” Continue reading →

‘Needless and Ideologically-Driven Cruelty’: Arkansas to Become First State to Implement Trump’s Assault on Medicaid

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“In a very real sense, health coverage for millions of Americans who rely on Medicaid could be at risk under the agenda Trump is advancing.”

By Jake Johnson, staff writer for CommonDreams. Published 3-5-2018

Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services administrator Seema Verma and Arkansas’ Republican Gov. Asa Hutchinson at a press conference on Monday. (Photo: Gov. Asa Hutchinson/Twitter)

The Trump administration is waging a vicious war on Medicaid—a program that provides life-saving healthcare to around 74 million Americans—and its effects will soon be felt in the state of Arkansas.

On Monday, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) administrator Seema Verma—who, prior to joining the Trump White House, helped craft Indiana’s punitive Medicaid restrictions—hand-delivered and signed a federal waiver granting Arkansas permission to begin imposing work requirements on the state’s Medicaid recipients, 60 percent of whom already work. Continue reading →

In ‘Twisted’ Push, Trump Admin Encourages States to Impose Work Requirements for Medicaid

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Healthcare experts warn changes would jeopardize healthcare for poorest and most vulnerable Americans

By Jessica Corbett, staff writer for CommonDreams. Published 11-7-2017

Seema Verma, administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, and U.S. President Donald Trump met in March 2017 in the Oval Office of the White House. (Photo: Shealah Craighead/White House)

In a move called “twisted” and “absolutely awful” by healthcare experts, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) administrator Seema Verma said Tuesday that the Trump administration will encourage states to force work requirements on people enrolled in Medicaid.

In a speech to the National Association of Medicaid Directors, Verma explained her approach to managing CMS, which emphasizes deregulation and transferring more control to the states. Verma vowed to fast-track approvals of states’ proposals for amending how they implement Medicaid and denounced the Obama administration’s rejection of work requirements for Medicaid recipients, promising to “approve proposals that promote community engagement activities,” which she defined as “working, volunteering, going to school, or obtaining job training.” Continue reading →

Why on Earth Is Trump Attacking Nation’s Nursing Home Population?

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Proposed rule called “disturbing” new direction for federal agency which “should be protecting patients, not making it easier for facilities to harm them and cover it up.”

By Common Dreams. Published 8-7-2017

An elderly resident using a walker passes a golden retriever April 28, 2000 in the New Mark Care Center in Kansas City, MO. (Photo by Don Ipock/Liaison)

“Why does Trump hate grandmothers?”

So asked Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) on Sunday as he decried a proposal from the administration that would prevent abused or mistreated seniors in nursing homes from getting their day in court, jeopardizing their health and safety.

Lieu’s concern and outrage over the effort is shared with fellow lawmakers as well as patient and consumer advocacy groups like Public Citizen, who said the effort to roll back protections from some of society’s most vulnerable people is just part of “a disturbing trend of the Trump administration attempting to reverse critical protections against forced arbitration,” which prevents individuals or groups of people from filing lawsuits or seeking damages for fraud, abuse, neglect, medical malpractice and other forms of wrongdoing. Continue reading →

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Tag Archives: Seema Verma

‘Shameless Stunt’: Trump Reportedly Attempting to Raid Medicare Trust Fund to Pay for Drug Discount Cards With His Name on Them

“There it is: Trump wants to steal billions from Medicare to pay for an illegal voter bribery scheme weeks before the election.”