The Senate Finance Committee will vote Wednesday on the nomination of Seema Verma to lead the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
The committee vote called a mark up will be held in closed session starting at 10:30 a.m.
Members are expected to support Verma and if so, her nomination would be scheduled before the full Senate for confirmation.
Her boss would be the recently confirmed head of Health and Human Services Tom Price of Georgia, a former House Republican.
[Also: Tom Price confirmed as Health and Human Services secretary]
In a hearing before the Senate Finance Committee on Feb. 16, Verma gave few specifics on how she would run CMS. It would be up to Congress to make decisions that CMS would then implement, she said.
She said she wanted to give senior citizens choices in access to care, and she opposes a voucher program for Medicare, a proposal Price has supported.
[Also: Seema Verma says she's against Medicare vouchers, suggests risk models hurt rural healthcare]
Verma has shown she is a supporter of giving states the power to create individualized Medicaid programs.
She was the architect of the Healthy Indiana Plan for Medicaid, and has helped other states with waiver programs.
She has professed support for changing the Medicaid program to improve outcomes, whether this is through a block grant or per capita cap based on the number of beneficiaries in a state.
Verma said little about the GOP's plan to repeal and replace Obamacare, saying she wasn't involved in that policy decision-making.
[Also: President Trump meets with big insurer CEOs following leak of Obamacare repeal/replace plan]
Verma questioned whether smaller providers wanted to take on the financial risk of some CMS value-based programs. Though she applauds Congress for passing the Medicare Access Chip Reauthorization Act, or MACRA, this can be a challenge for smaller, rural providers, which are already challenged by administrative and regulatory burdens, she said.
Verma is the founder of SVC Consultants in Indianapolis, Indiana, a national health policy consulting company.
"Seema Verma has the knowledge and extensive private sector experience necessary to lead CMS," said Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch, a Utah Republican. "Under the Obama administration, the responsibilities and purview of CMS grew at an alarming rate, in large part as a result of Obamacare. Coupled with the challenges facing both Medicare and Medicaid, we need a leader like Seema Verma to work alongside Congress as we work to improve the administration of our entitlement programs and refocus the responsibilities of the agency on patients, not the Washington bureaucracy."
Twitter: @SusanJMorse