President Donald Trump's pick to lead CMS Seema Verma offered Senators very few specific answers during her Feb. 16, 2017, confirmation hearing, The Hill reports.
Here's what you should know.
1. Ms. Verma offered several broad answers, but "didn't offer many specifics about how she would reform the national Medicaid and Medicare programs," according to The Hill.
2. She dodged questions about possible conflicts of interest concerning her private consulting firm leading Indiana's Medicare reforms.
Her consulting firm, SVC, made approximately $6.6 million in consulting fees since 2011. At the same time, she received more than $1 million through a contract with Palo Alto, Calif.-based Hewlett Packard. Hewlett is Indiana's largest operator of Medicaid claim processing systems.
3. Republican legislators believe Ms. Verma will help repeal Medicaid expansion and overhaul how the program operates. At the hearing, she declined to give her stance on either issue.
4. Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) said Ms. Verma had "constraints" on what she could and could not say. "I'm sorry that you have the constraints put on you so that you can't answer these questions forthrightly," Sen. Nelson said during the hearing. "These are the questions senior citizens are begging to hear the answers to."
5. The Center for Medicare Advocacy's Founder and Executive Director Judith Stein said in a release Ms. Verma would favor private insurance models encouraging individual choice and lower costs. Ms. Stein believes Ms. Verma is "unlikely to advance mandatory core benefits" and will likely shift that responsibility from the federal government to state governments.
6. Ms. Stein said two words summarized the confirmation hearing, "choice" and "competition." She warned the majority of Americans who support Medicare in its current form should heed warnings.
7. Ms. Stein said the center would work with Ms. Verma, if confirmed, but said the center would resist any and all threats to Medicare, Medicaid and the ACA.