100 Most Influential People in Healthcare - 2017

• Compensation: $172,100

• Years on list: 1

Confirmed by the Senate in March, the Trump administration's CMS administrator is widely regarded as having more Medicaid experience than any other administrator in the agency's history. Verma crafted Medicaid expansion plans in Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky and Ohio while she was CEO of the healthcare consulting firm SVC, which she founded in 2001. She is expected to push Medicaid in a more conservative direction in which states can apply for and receive waivers to impose more significant restrictions on enrollment. The CMS under Verma's leadership is working to ease requirements under the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act, recently announcing a proposal to exclude about 834,000 physicians in smaller practices from requirements under the law.