Article By MICHAEL L. MILLENSON

Excerpt

At the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, a senior manager named Jeff Grant pushed back hard in a letter to Anoka posted on LinkedIn after 82 employees in his group were told they were “not fit for continued employment.” Grant began by announcing he was immediately retiring after 41 years of federal service, emphasizing later that he had served with equal dedication both Republican and Democratic administrations. Grant went on to refute accusations of incompetence by saying the fired workers had not only passed a series of formal reviews with high marks, but the interview process, one in which he was personally involved, allowed CMS to select “truly the best of the best” out of hundreds of resumes.

Moreover, Grant pointedly noted, many of those fired at his Center for Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight were set to work on writing and implementing a new rule announced as a Trump administration priority. That rule, “is projected to save billions in program dollars,” he wrote, “which is the ultimate in government efficiency.”