Keep private healthcare information private - it's the law!

The Trump administration will start sharing the personal information of nearly 79 million Medicaid enrollees, including home addresses and ethnicities, with federal immigration authorities as the president seeks to ramp up deportations. Immigrants who lack legal status and some lawfully present immigrants are already barred from enrolling in Medicaid, a federal health services program that provides nearly free coverage to beneficiaries. Yet federal law requires all states to offer emergency Medicaid, temporary coverage that pays only for lifesaving services in emergency rooms to anyone regardless of immigration status. It is devastating to think that individuals may not seek essential medical care because they are afraid that if they do so, they may be targeted by this administration. The president's efforts to pull personal, private, and unrelated health data to create a mass deportation machine cannot be allowed to continue.