"Who packs $43 thousand worth of jewelry for a work trip? Honestly!"

(h/t @CarenaAK via Twitter)

The hits just keep on coming for CMS Administrator Seema Verma:

Medicare chief asked taxpayers to cover stolen jewelry

A top Trump health appointee sought to have taxpayers reimburse her for the costs of jewelry, clothing and other possessions, including a $5,900 Ivanka Trump-brand pendant, that were stolen while in her luggage during a work-related trip, according to documents obtained by POLITICO.

Seema Verma, who runs the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, filed a $47,000 claim for lost property on Aug. 20, 2018, after her bags were stolen while she was giving a speech in San Francisco the prior month. The property was not insured, Verma wrote in her filing to the Health and Human Services department.

The federal health department ultimately reimbursed Verma $2,852.40 for her claim, a CMS spokesperson said.

Verma’s claim included $43,065 for about two dozen pieces of jewelry, based off an appraisal she'd received from a jeweler about three weeks after the theft. Among Verma's stolen jewelry was an Ivanka Trump-brand pendant, made of gold, prasiolite and diamonds, that Verma’s jeweler valued at $5,900.

...A spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services, which includes CMS, said the department has a longstanding policy of paying for certain goods when they are lost during a work trip, so long as they “are not inherently for other uses,” which is why Verma was partially reimbursed.

...But the department is expressly prohibited from reimbursing staff for lost items like jewelry, the spokesperson said.

I guess when you've already wasted $3 million in taxpayer money on "personal image consultants", trying to sponge another $47,000 off of them to pay for your jewelry seems like chump change.

For what it's worth, $47,000 would pay for a full year of Medicaid coverage for 6 people.