Tie forces 2nd Senate Finance vote on CMS nominee Verma

A tie vote yesterday by the U.S. Senate’s Finance Committee on Seema Verma, the nominee to head the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, reportedly prompted the panel to schedule another ballot today.

The finance deadlocked at 9-9 yesterday on whether to pass Verma’s nomination on to the full Senate for a confirmation vote; the panel of 14 Republicans and 12 Democrats voted 15-11 with proxies to confirm, although the proxy votes do not count. The panel is due to vote again today, chairman Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) told Bloomberg.

As founder & CEO of health policy consulting firm SVC, Verma worked closely with Vice President Mike Pence, then Indiana’s governor, to craft the Hoosier State’s Medicaid expansion waiver under Obamacare. Their plan requires participants to pay a portion of their premiums (and face a lock-out if they miss a payment)  and maintain health savings accounts. Verma and SVC also consulted with other states on their Medicaid expansion waiver programs, including Iowa, Kentucky and Ohio.

In a Feb. 16 hearing before the finance committee, Verma supported limits on the federal government’s role in healthcare, saying states and individuals should be given more flexibility in their healthcare choices. The nominee punted on providing more specific ideas about the nuts and bolts of CMS policy, saying it’s up to Congress to set that agenda.

Yesterday Hatch and Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore), the finance panel’s ranking member, disagreed over Verma’s suitability for the top job at CMS, which oversees the healthcare of some 100 million beneficiaries.

“I think she is a highly qualified nominee. I really don’t think there’s anyone who reasonably doubts that,” Hatch said, according to Beckers Hospital Review.

“She has vast experience working with state governments to improve and modernize their Medicaid systems,” he said, Modern Healthcare reported. “And, she has the knowledge and temperament necessary to lead this important agency at this critical time.”

Wyden said Verma’s vague answers prompted him to vote against her confirmation.

“What we got is what I’m starting to call healthcare happy-talk because there’s just no content there. That’s deeply troubling for me when you are talking about a job that’s responsible for a trillion dollars of healthcare spending,” Wyden said, according to Beckers.

“We’re in the dark on how she would pursue these issues,” he said, according to Modern Healthcare.

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