Democratic lawmakers are demanding that the Trump administration halt plans to gather delicate medical information for thousands and thousands of federal staff and retirees, in addition to their relations.
The Workplace of Personnel Administration has requested 65 insurance coverage firms to offer month-to-month studies with detailed medical and pharmaceutical claims knowledge of greater than 8 million individuals enrolled in federal well being plans, KFF Well being Information reported earlier this month. The request, which might dramatically broaden 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 Home Oversight Committee — asking him to drop the company’s proposal.
“The gathering of broad, personally identifiable knowledge relating to medical care and remedy raises issues that OPM might goal sure federal staff in search of very important well being care companies that the Administration disagrees with on political grounds,” the Democratic Home members wrote to Kupor April 17, citing KFF Well being Information.
The letters from congressional Democrats alone are unlikely to reverse OPM’s plans. Republicans — who management Congress and, in the end, 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’ll use the info 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 well being info” to OPM and doesn’t present directions to redact figuring out info, reminiscent of names or diagnoses, from the claims.
That knowledge could possibly be used to implement cost-saving measures, well being coverage specialists advised KFF Well being Information earlier this month. However it will additionally give the Trump administration — which has laid off or fired tens of hundreds of federal staff — entry to an enormous trove of non-public info.
Within the letters, Democratic lawmakers lay out a variety of issues about potential penalties of OPM’s acquiring detailed medical claims for thousands and thousands of federal staff.
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 knowledge and that the administration might share the information throughout authorities companies, because it has finished with private info on thousands and thousands of Medicaid enrollees.
In addition they assert that the company doesn’t have a authorized proper to the info and that insurers’ sharing the knowledge with OPM would “violate the core rules of the Well being Insurance coverage Portability and Accountability Act.” HIPAA requires sure organizations that keep 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 “delicate disclosures relating to psychological well being, power sickness, or different deeply private circumstances.”
“For these causes, we strongly urge you to stop any additional consideration of this proposal,” states the letter, which was despatched to Kupor on April 19.
The American Federation of Authorities Staff, the most important union for federal staff, responded with alarm to KFF Well being Information’ reporting. The union famous in an announcement 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 knowledge throughout authorities companies.
“The query of what this administration intends to do with eight million People’ most non-public well being info shouldn’t be educational,” the AFGE assertion learn. “It’s pressing.”
In an emailed assertion, Kelley applauded the congressional letters.
“We’re happy that Democratic lawmakers on the Hill are simply as outraged as we’re over this administration’s blatant try and breach the privateness of thousands and thousands of People throughout the nation,” Kelley wrote. “We share their issues relating to potential misuse of the knowledge to proceed illegally concentrating on staff and their demand for OPM to withdraw this proposal.”