Amanda Seitz and Maia Rosenfeld
Democratic lawmakers are demanding that the Trump administration halt plans to gather delicate medical data for thousands and thousands of federal employees and retirees, in addition to their members of the family.
The Office of Personnel Management has asked 65 insurance coverage firms to supply month-to-month reviews with detailed medical and pharmaceutical claims information of greater than 8 million individuals enrolled in federal well being plans, KFF Health News reported earlier this month. The request, which might dramatically develop the personally identifiable medical info OPM can entry, alarmed well being ethicists, insurance coverage firm executives, and privateness advocates.
Now, OPM Director Scott Kupor has two letters on his desk — one from 16 U.S. senators and one other led by Rep. Robert Garcia, the highest Democrat on the House Oversight Committee — asking him to drop the company’s proposal.
“The collection of broad, personally identifiable data regarding medical care and treatment raises concerns that OPM could target certain federal employees seeking vital health care services that the Administration disagrees with on political grounds,” the Democratic House members wrote to Kupor April 17, citing KFF Health News.
The letters from congressional Democrats alone are unlikely to reverse OPM’s plans. Republicans — who management Congress and, finally, any oversight actions — haven’t weighed in on OPM’s discover.
OPM didn’t instantly reply to a request for touch upon the letters. The company, which mentioned in its discover that it’s going to use the information for oversight and to handle the federal well being plans, has not publicly addressed written issues about its proposal.
The discover, posted and despatched to insurers in December, states that insurers are legally permitted to reveal “protected health information” to OPM and doesn’t present directions to redact figuring out info, reminiscent of names or diagnoses, from the claims.
That information could possibly be used to implement cost-saving measures, well being coverage consultants instructed KFF Health News earlier this month. But it could additionally give the Trump administration — which has laid off or fired tens of hundreds of federal employees — entry to an enormous trove of non-public info.
In the letters, Democratic lawmakers lay out quite a lot of issues about potential penalties of OPM’s acquiring detailed medical claims for thousands and thousands of federal employees.
The letter from Senate Democrats — led by Adam Schiff of California and Mark Warner of Virginia — argues that OPM shouldn’t be outfitted to safeguard such delicate information and that the administration might share the data throughout authorities companies, because it has executed with private info on thousands and thousands of Medicaid enrollees.
They additionally assert that the company doesn’t have a authorized proper to the information and that insurers’ sharing the knowledge with OPM would “violate the core principles of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act.” HIPAA requires sure organizations that preserve identifiable well being info — reminiscent of hospitals and insurers — to guard it from being disclosed with out affected person consent. The proposal, the senators warn, threatens sufferers’ relationships with their clinicians, particularly “sensitive disclosures regarding mental health, chronic illness, or other deeply personal conditions.”
“For these reasons, we strongly urge you to cease any further consideration of this proposal,” states the letter, which was despatched to Kupor on April 19.
The American Federation of Government Employees, the most important union for federal staff, responded with alarm to KFF Health News’ reporting. The union famous in a press release from its nationwide president, Everett Kelley, that OPM’s proposal “comes within the context of coordinated assaults on federal staff and repeated stretching of the authorized boundaries for sharing delicate private information throughout authorities companies.
“The question of what this administration intends to do with eight million Americans’ most private health information is not academic,” the AFGE assertion learn. “It is urgent.”
In an emailed assertion, Kelley applauded the congressional letters.
“We are pleased that Democratic lawmakers on the Hill are just as outraged as we are over this administration’s blatant attempt to breach the privacy of millions of Americans across the country,” Kelley wrote. “We share their concerns regarding potential misuse of the information to continue illegally targeting workers and their demand for OPM to withdraw this proposal.”
