Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Administrator Seema Verma has openly celebrated her campaign to approve work requirements and other new restrictions for state Medicaid programs that will result in poor people losing their coverage, but she is apparently aware of the fact that the general public sees her as a ghoul.
To that end, Politico reports that Verman has been spending taxpayer dollars on consultants she hired to improve her personal image.
The communications subcontracts approved by Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Seema Verma — routed through a larger federal contract and described to POLITICO by three individuals with firsthand knowledge of the agreements — represent a sharp break from precedent at the agency. Those deals, managed by Verma’s deputies, came in some cases over the objections of CMS staffers, who raised concerns about her push to use federal funds on GOP consultants and to amplify coverage of Verma’s own work. CMS has its own large communications shop, including about two dozen people who handle the press. [...]
Her agency’s use of outside contracts and subcontracts is legal, but experts and current officials say it is not transparent and raises ethical questions.
You know, hiring consultants and spin doctors isn't necessary. It would much easier (and cheaper) to simply stop trying to kill people.
The American public is generously forgiving, for better or worse, and Verma's image would naturally improve if she just stopped trying to suck the lifeforce out of the working poor.