The Trump administration is seeking the potentially sensitive medical records of federal employees, raising concerns that the data could be used for political targeting.
KFF Health News, a nonprofit health policy news site, flagged a notice posted in December by the Office of Personnel Management of a rule to require health insurance companies covering federal employees to turn over sensitive information.
The agency’s notice asks insurers that offer Federal Employees Health Benefits or Postal Service Health Benefits plans to furnish ‘service use and cost data,’ including ‘medical claims, pharmacy claims, encounter data, and provider data.’ It says the data will ‘ensure they provide competitive, quality, and affordable plans.’
The notice, posted and sent to insurers in December, does not instruct them to redact identifying information — a burdensome process that they would need federal guidance to complete.
Instead, it states that insurers are legally permitted to disclose ‘protected health information’ to OPM.
The notice included a comment period that ended in February. According to the online federal docket, only one insurer, CVS Health, submitted a public comment urging the OPM to reconsider its requirement.
Several health and privacy experts expressed concerns that the data would not necessarily be anonymized, which could give the administration leverage to target employees or their families for political purposes. According to the report:
OPM could use the data to analyze costs and improve the system, said Sharona Hoffman, a health law ethicist at Case Western Reserve University in Ohio. ‘But,’ she said, ‘they are going to get very, very detailed and granular data about everything that happens. The concern here is the more information they have, they could use it to discipline or target people who are not cooperating politically.’
KFF Health News reported, “OPM has not provided any update since closing comments in March. The agency would need to publish a final decision before anything officially changes.”
OPM did not immediately respond to MS NOW’s request for comment.
There are plenty of reasons why one might worry about what the Trump administration could ultimately do with the medical records it’s seeking. Elsewhere in the government, Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought has expressed his desire to traumatize federal employees.
And we have already seen examples of the Trump administration abusing medical records for political purposes, using them as a tool in its racist, anti-immigrant crackdown. At the same time, it has sought to cast doubt on, or outright ban, safe and effective health procedures that conservatives oppose.
The post New rule would give administration granular medical data for federal employees appeared first on MS NOW.
Author: Source Author
From MS Now.
Leave a Reply