Seema Verma, One of the Longest-serving Officials in the Trump Administration, Joins Zemplee as Advisory Board Member
- A former administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, the Indian American has tried to stay active in the health care world by joining multiple companiesâ boards since she stepped down in January.
Seema Verma, a former administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), has joined healthcare company Zemplee, as an advisory board member. The company utilizes attentive AI and passive sensors to help the elderly age in place gracefully. In a press release announcing the appointment, Zemplee said Vermaâs âbackground in healthcare and technology will bolster the companyâs transformational remote elderly care system offerings.â
Since she stepped down from her post in January this year, Verma has tried to stay active in the health care world by joining multiple companiesâ boards including Zemplee, Lumeris, LifeStance and Monogram Health.
Verma is the protĂ©gĂ© of Vice President Mike Pence, who urged President Trump to appoint her to head up the CMS. She has played a key role in the governmentâs coronavirus response, serving on the White House coronavirus task force led by Pence. The Washington Post reported that under Vermaâs leadership, the CMS âhas rolled out a number of tele-health, hospital and nursing home rules and regulations over the past several months.â
Speaking to Home Health Care News about the ongoing shift toward in-home care and decentralization of traditionally brick-and-mortar models, Verma hailed it as a positive development. âThe advent of new technology, from telehealth to remote patient monitoring, is supporting the rapid adoption of home-based care,â she said.
Before heading the CMS, Verma was the founder and CEO of an Indianapolis, Indiana-based health policy consulting company, who made millions of dollars helping then Indiana Governor Mike Pence dismantle Medicaid in the state, according to Planned Parenthood.
Verma has been a lightning rod since the Obama administration with her strident opposition to the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare. She is arguably one of the most conservative among Indian American Republicans, along with FCCâs Ajit Pai. She pushed for deregulation and other conservative elements at CMS, a $1 trillion agency that provides healthcare coverage to nearly 140 million low-income people, seniors, and people with disabilities.
Throughout her tenure in the Trump administration, Verma courted several controversies. A Health and Human Services report released on July 16, 2020, revealed that Verma violated federal contracting rules. It said she broke federal rules in directing millions of dollars in publicity contracts, which ultimately benefited GOP-aligned communication specialists. The inspector general launched the audit in April 2019, after a Politico report said Verma hired GOP-connected private consultants costing millions of taxpayer dollars to burnish her image, polish her brand, write her speeches, in addition to traveling with her around the country.
In March 2017, Verma reportedly sent letters to governors across the country telling them they could impose work requirements and medical fees on low-income people who use Medicaid.
She officially stepped down as the head of CMS on Jan. 15, a week before the incoming Biden administration took office. âFrom where I stand, given that weâre in the middle of a pandemic, I felt like it would be a dereliction of my duty and my commitment to the agency and to the people that we serve, to leave my post and without ensuring a smooth transition to the Biden administration,â Verma told The Wall Street Journal.
However, Verma, one of the longest-serving officials in the Trump administration, told Insider that she has âno regrets,â despite some of her changes to Medicare, Medicaid, and Obamacare facing âlegal challenges and political backlash.â She said as a CMS administrator, she âmade it a priority to tear down bureaucratic barriers to promote innovation, and I wanted to continue that focus in the private sector.â
Verma received her BS in life sciences from the University of Maryland and her Master of Public Health (MPH) in health policy and management from Johns Hopkins University.