Nearly three decades ago, something now unthinkable happened here in Washington: A long-simmering debate was mutually settled
Ordered by the GOP-controlled Congress and developed by the Clinton White House, a plan for the government to assign every person a “unique health identifier” that could be used to track their medical records was abruptly abandoned. It could not withstand a flurry of critics who argued that a repository of Americans’ sensitive health information, handled by the federal government, was not only Orwellian but also could never be fully protected.
Under President Donald Trump, there’s been no public debate over whether the government is entitled to Americans’ medical records. Federal agencies are now simply demanding them
Our new investigation at KFF Health News — conducted over four months with the help of internal emails, documents, and dozens of interviews — reveals that the Consumer Product Safety Commission has quietly pressured hospitals across the country to relinquish the medical records of emergency room patients
The agency, which orders recalls of products such as home appliances and baby items, has told hospitals that they are required to hand over detailed, private health information of their patients to a private contractor, Konza Health. Officials from both the CPSC and Konza have insisted that identifying information, such as names and addresses, not be removed from the records before they’re shared.
In emails, CPSC officials told hospitals that if they refuse to comply with the agency’s new mandate — for which it had yet to provide public notice, as legally required — they could face penalties from an information-blocking regulation
The CPSC told us this approach is necessary to modernize the agency’s long-standing surveillance system to identify unsafe products, which has long been sustained by humans working at hospitals
But the hospital officials we spoke with, as well as technology and privacy advocates, unanimously questioned the agency’s authority to gather this data, let alone mandate its collection. Hospital executives, meanwhile, have raised concerns that sharing such a swath of identifiable medical record data would violate federal health privacy law
The CPSC’s demand for medical record data is not an isolated incident under the Trump administration
The Office of Personnel Management is seeking identifiable health information on more than 8 million federal workers, retirees, and their relatives — even over the objection of insurance companies, unions, and privacy advocates
Meanwhile, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is accessing medical records from some state-run health information exchanges, which allow hospitals and clinics to exchange detailed, identifiable patient information. The data, Kennedy told us, is necessary to study autism and chronic diseases
