Medicare chief Seema Verma reportedly asked HHS for $43,600 for stolen jewelry, Ivanka Trump pendant

Seema Verma, the political appointee who runs the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), filed a $47,000 claim for items stolen from her rented SUV while she was giving a speech in San Francisco last year, Politico reported Sunday. The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) ended up reimbursing her $2.852.40, CMS said, adding that it does not pay for lost jewelry — which made up $43,065 of Verma's claim — or other personal, not-work-related items.

Among the jewelry taken from Verma's rented SUV on July 25, 2018, was an Ivanka Trump–branded pendant made of gold, prasiolite, and diamonds, valued at $5,900, Politico reports. Along with her jewelry, Verma reportedly sought $2,000 for lost clothes, $325 for moisturizer, and $349 for noise-canceling headphones. None of the items were insured, she told HHS. In her initial police report, Verma estimated the value of her lost belongings at $20,000. A CMS spokesperson told Politico that Verma was traveling with her jewelry because she commutes to Washington from her home in Indiana each week "at her own expense."

In the speech Verma was giving while her luggage was stolen, she criticized the Democrats' Medicare-for-all proposals and said that "Medicaid is too vital a program to let fraud and inappropriate spending threaten it." The government, Politico reports, spends about $5,700 per Medicaid patient.

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Verma, a former consultant to Vice President Mike Pence, runs the $1 trillion agency that administers Medicare, Medicaid, and the Affordable Care Act. She has recently been in a high-profile feud with her boss, HHS Secretary Alex Azar, that grew contentious enough that President Trump and Pence have stepped in to mediate, Politico reports. An outside lawyer was also called in, Axios reports.

The HHS inspector general and House Democrats are also scrutinizing Verma over a since-suspended one-year $2.25 million "strategic communications" contract that, Politico reported earlier this year, included efforts to burnish Verma's own brand, including pitching profiles in Glamour and other magazines. Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) also raised concerns about the contract but decided against investigating after speaking with Verma, Politico reports.