The administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services on Tuesday said she questioned whether addressing health insurance for low-income people should have happened through Medicaid, as it did under Obamacare.
“We need a solution for low-income, non-disabled Americans … I question whether Medicaid is the best vehicle,” Seema Verma said, speaking in a USA Today interview that was live streamed.
She said she believed there should be a mechanism so people in poverty can pay for medical coverage, but suggested it occur through the private market. Medicaid should be designed for people who would be entirely reliant on it, including people who are disabled and children in poverty, she said.
“But this population we hope are individuals who are not going to be staying in poverty,” she said of the Medicaid expansion under Obamacare, adding that she hoped President Trump’s job creation policies would help people buy private coverage.
Obamacare was written to require all states to expand the Medicaid program to low-income people, but a Supreme Court decision made it optional. As a result, 31 states and the District of Columbia have expanded, some by restructuring the program. Verma was the architect behind the Medicaid expansion plan in Indiana.
On Tuesday, she said she was open to more states designing their own Medicaid programs, including through work requirements that have “appropriate safeguards” so people who need it could access it.
“We have made it very clear that we’re open to those types of proposals,” Verma said. “The idea around community engagement isn’t punitive.”
