Seema Verma

On March 2, 2020, the office of Vice President Mike Pence announced Verma's addition to White House Coronavirus Task Force.

In March 2019, Politico reported that in her role as CMS administrator, Verma approved communications subcontracts worth more than $2 million of taxpayer funds on Republican-connected communications consultants and other expenses to boost her visibility and public image. Included in the consultants' work were proposals to have Verma featured in magazines like Glamour and have her invited to prestigious events like the Kennedy honors to increase her public persona.

In December 2019, columnist Michael Hiltzik of the Los Angeles Times declared "Seema Verma is the greatest threat to public health programs in the Trump administration, with the possible exception only of Azar himself."

On July 25, 2018, Verma gave a speech in San Francisco in which she criticized proposals for "Medicare for all". She claimed that single-payer healthcare would "destroy" Medicare, which provides insurance for elderly people, and lead to "Medicare for None". The speech and her repeated attacks on medicare-for-all proposals led to a lawsuit alleging that her actions violated the Hatch Act.

On August 20, 2018, Verma filed a claim requesting that taxpayers reimburse her for jewelry that was allegedly stolen on a work-related trip to San Francisco. Although she requested $47,000, including a $325 claim for moisturizer and a $5,900 Ivanka Trump-brand pendant, she ultimately received $2,852.40 in reimbursement.

Born in Virginia, Verma moved several times across the United States with her family and once lived in Taiwan for five years before settling in the greater Indianapolis area. Verma's husband Sanjay is a child psychiatrist who runs a medical practice through the Indiana Health Group. The couple has two children, Maya and Shaan. As of 2017, Verma and her family live in Carmel, Indiana.

On November 29, 2016, President-elect Donald Trump nominated Verma to serve as administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the agency that oversees Medicare, Medicaid, and the insurance markets. On March 13, 2017, the United States Senate confirmed her nomination in a 55–43 vote. One of her first actions was to send a letter to the nation's governors, urging them to impose insurance premiums for Medicaid, charge Medicaid recipients for emergency room visits, and encourage recipients to obtain employment or job training.

In 2014, concerns were raised over a potential conflict of interest arising from Verma's dual roles as both a health care consultant for Indiana and an employee of a Hewlett-Packard division that is among Indiana's largest Medicaid vendors. As of 2014, SVC Inc. had been awarded over $3.5 million in Indiana state contracts while Verma was concurrently employed with Hewlett-Packard, earning over one million dollars during a period when the company had secured five hundred million dollars in state contracts.

Verma founded health policy consulting firm SVC Inc. in June 2001. She was president and CEO of the company, which has worked with state insurance agencies and public health agencies in preparation for the implementation of the Affordable Care Act, and assisted Indiana and Kentucky, as well as other states, in the design of Medicaid expansion programs under the ACA. In her work with Indiana, Ohio, and Kentucky, she developed Medicaid reform programs under the Section 1115 waiver process. Verma's firm provided technical assistance to the state of Michigan in the implementation of their 1115 Medicaid waiver, assisted Tennessee in their coverage expansion proposal, and supported Iowa's Medicaid transition to managed care.

Verma received a bachelor's degree in life sciences from the University of Maryland, College Park in 1993. She earned a Master of Public Health with a concentration in health policy and management from the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health in 1996. A graduate of the Richard G. Lugar Excellence in Public Service Series, she was selected for the American Enterprise Institute Leadership Network.

Seema Verma (born September 27, 1970) is an American health policy consultant and since March 2017 administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, serving in the Trump Administration. She is the founder and previous CEO of SVC Inc., a health policy consulting firm, which was acquired by Health Management Associates (HMA) prior to her nomination to head CMS.