Xavier Becerra & HHS: Beltway Embarassment Leading Overpowered Department

In December 2019, the Los Angeles Times declared Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services chief Seema Verma “a threat to public health.” The previously unknown health-policy consultant had become a bit of a media fixation since President Trump tapped her to run the nation’s health-care entitlements. Columnists salivated over the details of a reported feud between Verma and her then-boss, Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar, while wannabe Woodwards reported on her alleged misuse of taxpayer dollars.

It was, without exaggeration, the most attention anyone has ever paid to CMS: possibly the most boring part of the federal government. And it was par for the course during the Trump administration, when the Department of Health and Human Services and its subsidiaries appeared at the center of every news cycle.

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Tim Rice

Tim Rice is associate editor of the Washington Free Beacon.

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Xavier Becerra

In December 2019, the Los Angeles Times declared Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services chief Seema Verma “a threat to public health.” The previously unknown health-policy consultant had become a bit of a media fixation since President Trump tapped her to run the nation’s health-care entitlements. Columnists salivated over the details of a reported feud between Verma and her then-boss, Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar, while wannabe Woodwards reported on her alleged misuse of taxpayer dollars.

It was, without exaggeration, the most attention anyone has ever paid to CMS: possibly the most boring part of the federal government. And it was par for the course during the Trump administration, when the Department of Health and Human Services and its subsidiaries appeared at the center of every news cycle.