FILE - United States secretary of health and human services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. speaks in the Roosevelt Room at the White House, about reinstating the national fitness assessment implemented in public schools from 1956 until 2013, on Thursday, Jul …
WASHINGTON - A federal judge ordered the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to stop giving deportation officials access to personal information — including home addresses.
The order, issued by federal Judge Vince Chhabria in California, temporarily halts the health department from sharing personal data of enrollees in 20 states, which include California, Arizona, Washington and New York.
What they're saying:
"Using CMS data for immigration enforcement threatens to significantly disrupt the operation of Medicaid—a program that Congress has deemed critical for the provision of health coverage to the nation’s most vulnerable residents," Chhabria wrote in his decision, issued on Tuesday.
Access to personal information
The backstory:
The HHS first handed over the personal data on millions of Medicaid enrollees in a handful of states in June.
As a result, 20 states filed to sue the department for violating federal privacy laws.
In July, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services entered into a new agreement that gave the Department of Homeland Security daily access to view the personal data — including Social Security numbers and home address — of all the nation's 79 million Medicaid enrollees.
Neither agreement was announced publicly.
The Medicaid data sharing is part of a broader effort by the Trump administration to provide DHS with more data on migrants. In May, for example, a federal judge refused to block the Internal Revenue Service from sharing immigrants’ tax data with Immigration and Customs Enforcement to help agents locate and detain people living without legal status in the U.S.
This browser does not support the Video element.
SCOTUS lets DOGE access Social Security data
The Supreme Court ruled on Friday that the Department of Government Efficiency is permitted to have access to Social Security records.
Dig deeper:
Immigrants who are not living in the U.S. legally, as well as some lawfully present immigrants, are not allowed to enroll in the Medicaid program that provides nearly free coverage for health services. But federal law requires all states to offer emergency Medicaid, a temporary coverage that pays only for lifesaving services in emergency rooms to anyone, including non-U.S. citizens.
Medicaid is a jointly funded program between states and the federal government.
The Source: Information for this article was taken from The Associated Press.