New Medicaid chief says recipients should get jobs, pay premiums

The following article by Amy Goldstein of the Washington Post was posted on the StarTribune website March 15, 2017:

Seema Verma, the new administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, is shown with Vice President Mike Pence after being sworn in Tuesday.

Hours after she was sworn in, the Trump administration’s top official for Medicaid and her boss dispatched a letter to the nation’s governors, urging states to alter the insurance program for poor and disabled people by charging them insurance premiums, requiring them to pay part of emergency room bills and prodding them to get jobs.

The letter, sent Tuesday night by Seema Verma, the new administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), and Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price, also derides the Medicaid expansion that 31 states and the District of Columbia adopted under the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Continue reading “New Medicaid chief says recipients should get jobs, pay premiums”