$2,933 for 'Girl's Night': Medicaid chief's consulting expenses revealed

[brooklynite]

Source: Politico

When Seema Verma, the Trump administration's top Medicaid official, went to a reporter's home in November 2018 for a "Girl's Night" thrown in her honor, taxpayers footed the bill to organize the event: $2,933.

When Verma wrote an op-ed on Fox News' website that fall, touting President Donald Trump's changes to Obamacare, taxpayers got charged for one consultant's price to place it: $977.

And when consultants spent months promoting Verma to win awards like Washingtonian magazine's "Most Powerful Women in Washington" and appear on high-profile panels, taxpayers got billed for that too: more than $13,000.

The efforts were steered by Pam Stevens, a Republican communications consultant and former Trump administration official working to raise the brand of Verma, who leads the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. The prices were the amount a consulting company billed the government for her services, based on her invoices, which were obtained by congressional Democrats.


Read more: https://www.politico.com/news/2020/09/10/seema-verma-medicaid-expenses-411539

[CaptYossarian]

1. Based on salary inequity, that's $4,500 for "boys' night".

WTF is wrong with America?

[overleft]

2. The most corrupt administration in the history of the US.

[NCjack]

3. Expensive work to buff the image of Seema Verma. Nasty DEMs toss it all into the dumper.

Good work, Nasty DEMs!

[AllaN01Bear]

4. if this was a dem, look out.

[quaint]

5. Drops in the bucket.

During her tenure as administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, the HHS Inspector General concluded that she spent more than $5 million in federal contracts on politically connected contractors and violated federal contracting rules. More than $3.5 million of taxpayer funds were spent on consultants to promote Verma's public profile. (Emphasis mine, not Wiki's.)

[dalton99a]

6. Vile grifter

[Yeehah]

7. Indict, prosecute, imprison

or it will happen forever.

[SharonClark]

8. Well, I did write mumble mouth Senator Grassley about when he'll investigate this.

He'll probably reply that he wants to investigate Hillary or Obama.

[DonaldsRump]

10. If you remember, she was always behind Trump during the early days

of the pandemic, nodding witlessly in favor of everything he said and sometimes spouting her own nonsense. IIRC, she was hand-picked by Pence for this role.

She has a huge amount to answer for beginning on January 20, 2021, this being a small, but important part of it.

[muriel_volestrangler]

11. The "Girls' Night" host, Susan Page, is moderating the VP debate. Verma used to work for Pence

One particularly notable expense: A consultant named Pam Stevens was paid $2,933 for organizing a party at a journalist’s house. That journalist, USA Today Washington bureau chief Susan Page, also happens to be the moderator for the upcoming vice presidential debate featuring Verma’s onetime boss, Mike Pence. That led to calls for Page to step down from the debate.

But according to Page’s employer, she didn’t do anything wrong. And that nearly three grand Verma charged to taxpayers didn’t cover the party itself: Page did that on her own, paying a catering bill of $4,025. Page hosted the party in November 2018, USA Today spokesperson Chrissy Terrell tells Washingtonian, and says she received no payment or reimbursement from the federal government and was “unaware Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services was being billed for the event.”

The event honored Verma and Heather Wilson, the US Secretary of the Air Force from May 2017-May 2019. In addition to the four grand, Page also paid “several hundred dollars for beverages and a bit more in tips for the wait staff,” Terrell says.

https://www.washingtonian.com/2020/09/10/susan-page-paid-for-that-seema-verma-party-herself/

The 49-year-old Verma, who advised then-Gov. Mike Pence in Indiana on health policy before joining the Trump administration, has strongly rejected any suggestion of wrongdoing in her consulting practices.

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/09/10/seema-verma-medicaid-expenses-411539

it's not a question of whether Page got government money; it's that she's such good friends with Verma that she's happy to throw (and largely pay for) a large party for her; and now she is meant to be 'neutral' in a debate featuring the politician whom she is a protégé of.

[UpInArms]

12. Related article

Top Medicaid official racked up $3.5 million in consulting charges -- and billed it all to taxpayers

The person in charge of providing health care for low-income Americans spent several million dollars of taxpayer money on furthering her own career, a congressional investigation has found.

Seema Verma, the administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and a member of the coronavirus task force, racked up $3.5 million in consulting charges, event costs, and other things that developed her connections within the Republican party, Politico reports via the investigation set to be published Thursday. That included nearly $3,000 on a "Girl's Night" party, about $1,000 to place an op-ed with Fox News, and dozens more line items before Verma was cut off last year.

Politico first reported Verma's excessive spending in March 2019, and her contracts with the consulting firm Nahigian Strategies were soon cut off. But Politico also sparked a congressional probe into those contracts, and investigators sifted through thousands of pages of Verma's emails and billing records. They found that Verma spent more than $3 million over two years in the Trump administration on "handpicked communications consultants used to promote Administrator Verma's public profile and personal brand," congressional Democrats said in a Thursday statement.

Among the charges, investigators found Verma spent $115,000 with one consultant who "tried to broker conversations between Verma and well-known Washington reporters," booked conservative media appearances, and even tried to connect her with then-White House communications director Bill Shine, Politico writes. Verma also diverted $13,856 to shoot an "eMedicare" video, including $450 for a makeup artist, and spent at least $3,400 in consulting charges to arrange an appearance on Politico's Women Rule podcast, among many other charges.

Read more: https://news.yahoo.com/top-medicaid-official-racked-3-154830028.html

(Sorry, I did not see your post )

Am so sick of all of these grifters in our government.