The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), which oversees and manages Medicare and Medicaid services, shares personal health data with officials from the Department of Homeland Security and possibly Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), lawsuits filed by California and 19 other states said.
The lawsuit filed in US District Court for the Northern District of California alleges that HHS has implemented a “mass transfer” of personal health data collected from Trump administration beneficiaries to support the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement efforts and violated existing laws, including Social Security Act and HIPAA.
California Attorney General Rob Bonta and attorney generals in 19 other states, including New York, Arizona and Nevada, petitioned the courts to block further sharing of personal information through the lawsuit.
“The Trump administration overturned years of privacy protections with its decision to illegally share sensitive personal health data with ICE,” Bonta said in a statement that it accused the federal government of potentially preventing seeking emergency medical care.
The federal government and states routinely share data from Medicaid recipients for verification purposes, but said data sharing has caused fear and confusion as California’s unique Medicaid version of Medi-Cal has expanded eligibility over the years to include refugees and non-citizens, including deferred beneficiaries for early arrival beneficiaries.
“They may not receive the emergency medical services they need and will result in negative health effects and even death,” the state attorney general’s office said in a statement.
In response to the lawsuit, HHS argued that data sharing was “within the scope of legal authorities” to ensure that Medicaid interests are directed towards those who meet eligibility.
“Under the leadership of Dr. (Hemet) Oz, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services) are actively cracking down on states that may misuse federal Medicaid funds to subsidize care for illegal immigrants, including California.” “This surveillance effort, supported by legal inter-agency data sharing with DHS, focuses on identifying waste, fraud, and systemic abuse.”
Along with California, the Arizona Attorney General, Washington, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Massachusetts, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island and Vermont, have filed the lawsuit.
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