This article will be updated.
Federal officials are seeking personal enrollee data from the Medicaid-funded Oregon Health Plan as part of a crackdown on coverage of people who lack immigration documentation, The Lund Report has learned.
The move comes even as the Trump administration’s decision to share equivalent data from other states with immigration enforcers and deportation officials has sparked objections saying the move is unlawful and unethical, according to the Associated Press.
The move comes amid a larger Trump administration crackdown on people who immigrated to the country without proper documentation. That crackdown — combined with top Trump administration officials’ refusal to follow Congressionally approved budgets, honor contracts entered into by the federal government, or obey court orders other than from the U.S. Supreme Court — is fueling protests across the country.
None of the requested information has yet been turned over, and the state of Oregon has until July 30 to comply with the request. The Oregon Health Authority did not respond to a question from The Lund Report over whether it intends to comply. Instead, a spokesperson wrote to the Lund Report, the agency “will continue to evaluate the CMS request.”
A spokesperson for Gov. Tina Kotek did not immediately respond to a question over whether her administration would comply with the request.
It’s unclear whether the data requested would include that of enrollees of the Healthier Oregon program authorized by the Oregon Legislature to cover people who lack immigration documentation using only state funds. The program covers more than 100,000 people.
Earlier on Friday, June 13, the Associated Press reported that Trump appointees had overruled objections over the ethics and legality of turning over Medicaid data to the Department of Homeland Security.
So far the administration has provided immigration officials with personal enrollee data from California, Illinois, Washington state and Washington, D.C., according to the AP.
Those states, like Oregon, have expanded coverage to people who are undocumented through programs that pay for it with only state, not federal funds. The use of federal Medicaid dollars to fund medical care for people who are undocumented is for the most part prohibited under federal law.
Now the Trump administration appears to want Oregon’s data, too.
Meeting requested
The formal request to Oregon, sent a week ago, came from federal health officials looking into “unsatisfactory immigration status.”
Obtained under Oregon Public Records Law, the email from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services seeks information about any claims submitted that were approved to be paid with federal funding — other than for what’s known as “emergency medicaid,” which under federal law is allowed in certain circumstances.
It requested a meeting later in June to answer any questions from the state.
In addition to a request for financial data, which is not atypical, the request also included “an ask for personally identifying information, which is atypical,” the spokesperson noted in their email.
In an interview months ago, Oregon Health Authority Director Sejal Hathi told The Lund Report that her office was exploring what steps it could take to protect enrollee information in light of Trump’s election.
However, it’s unclear what that research concluded.
According to the health authority spokesperson, the agency “protects member data to the greatest extent permitted by law. Both federal and state laws, including Oregon’s sanctuary law, provide broad confidentiality protections for health information.
“The agency does not voluntarily share personally identifiable information and only shares personally identifiable information when required by law,” the spokesperson added.
Request comes amid other steps
Typically, the Office of Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services conducts audits of whether Medicaid funds are spent properly. In this case the request came not from OIG, but a Texas-based financial oversight employee at CMS.
The Trump administration has threatened to cut federal Medicaid funding for states like Oregon that cover people regardless of documentation.
Eliminating coverage would likely transfer some of those costs from the state budget to hospitals, employer-based health plans as well as individual health insurance ratepayers.
That would also increase the costs of some care by shifting it from primary care providers to emergency rooms that are far more costly, as reported by The Lund Report last month.
