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On Halloween afternoon, head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), Seema Verma, took to Twitter to share her thoughts about Bernie Sanders “Medicare For All” campaign. While a member of President Trump’s Administration using Twitter as a forum to share their opinions about adversaries is a common occurrence, this was a surprising move by the Administrator of CMS. Verma was has played a discreet, but significant role in D.C. since the very beginning of the Trump Administration.
This marks the first time Verma has made waves in a very Trumpesque way. She used her twitter account to take a humorous, but direct swipe at the Bernie Sanders “Medicare For All” movement gaining momentum across the U.S. The Administrator said that a t-shirt with the Sanders slogan was the “years scariest Halloween costume.”
This year’s scariest Halloween costume goes to... pic.twitter.com/QtRbdmiR8T
— Administrator Seema Verma (@SeemaCMS) October 31, 2018
Later in the day, Verma tweeted, “Did I get your attention? Good.”
Did I get your attention? Good. Medicare for All isn’t a joke. It’s a multi-trillion dollar drain on the American economy that will bankrupt future generations. It’s government controlled health care that will strip choice away from millions. It’s a bad idea. And it IS scary.
— Administrator Seema Verma (@SeemaCMS) November 1, 2018
She, along with Republicans running for office in next week’s midterm elections, believe that the Democrat-backed Sanders proposal for the equivalent of universal health care, “is simply a bad idea.” Verma says instead, we need to be strengthening the Medicare program itself. She went on in an interview to say that, “You try to expand it, that’s going to really threaten the program for the people that it’s supposed to serve.” Those people it’s supposed to serve are all Americans above the age of 65 and those with certain disabilities. Hence why the program is already so expensive to maintain.
Verma frequently references the estimated $32 Trillion price tag of actually providing Medicare for all, and what that really means for the solvency of the program that was established in 1965 for seniors. Add in the additional opportunities for fraud and abuse throughout the health system, and the proposal itself is certain to be exorbitantly costly to U.S. taxpayers.
Seema Verma was the 7th person nominated by Trump, and secured her nomination just days after the election (November 29th, 2016). Since that time, she has stuck to talking points and quietly overseen her $1 Trillion budget. As a nationally recognized health policy figure she has taken great care in the past two years to guide policymaking without media attention – both in the private and public sectors.
In the coming days, her tweet is likely to make waves in both Democratic and Republican bases as they head to the polls. It will be interesting to follow her social engagement about health policy now that she has officially entered the arena.
