What you should know about Medicaid and ICE

You may have received a notice or letter earlier this year from your clinic or hospital, alerting you that some of your information is possibly being shared with ICE.

We know these notices have caused anxiety in the immigrant community so here are some things you should know. 

First, the notice you received is not about something that is happening at your clinic or hospital or healthcare provider. It does not mean your clinic is collaborating with ICE.

Instead, the notices are the result of the Trump administration’s decision to give ICE access to some Medicaid data.  

Last year, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), the agency that administers the programs at the federal level, started asking states to share patient data. 

Although Medicare and Medicaid are federal programs, and overseen by the CMS agency at the federal level, each state runs the Medicaid program itself, sometimes covering more people than the federal government requires. States have traditionally held patient records. 

When news reports surfaced that the federal agency was handing over those patient records it took from states with ICE, advocates raised the alarm. Two dozen states along with Colorado, filed a lawsuit against the federal government attempting to stop the data from being shared. 

The states argued that patients had a right to privacy and that the records about patients legally could not be shared for purposes that were not related to health.

At first, a federal judge issued an order temporarily stopping all the data sharing, but by January of this year, another court ruling reversed that decision. The courts are now allowing a limited amount of data to be shared by CMS with ICE.

Colorado’s Governor, Jared Polis, initially did not comply with the request for data from the CMS federal agency. But in the fall of last year, while CMS was prohibited from sharing any data it got with ICE, Colorado handed over thousands of pages of patient records. It is possible that this information has now been shared with ICE, although it is not clear. 

The lawsuit continues to make its way through the courts.

Voces Unidas joined other advocates at the time asking the state to cease all data sharing that could affect our immigrant families. We were concerned that ICE would use addresses and other program information to target immigrants as they meet quotas for deportation. 

The fact is that immigrants who live in Colorado and have no legal status, already are excluded from medical coverage through programs like Medicaid. 

The majority of data involved here is from a program called Emergency Medicaid. When people without legal status, but who would otherwise qualify for Medicaid because of low income, have a medical emergency and end up in the state’s emergency rooms, medical providers are required to treat them to save their life and stabilize them. 

Emergency Medicaid, required in all states, also covers people who are legal residents, but who are ineligible for assistance programs in the first five years of their new legal status.

The Emergency Medicaid program allows hospitals to get reimbursed for that required treatment of individuals who aren’t eligible for traditional Medicaid. In Colorado, women who are pregnant are also covered regardless of their legal status through a program called Cover All Coloradans. 

In this way, Medicaid programs are a lifeline for not only millions of Colorado families, but it also helps to reimburse hospitals for these emergency services.  

The next thing to know is that the information being shared is not about your specific health care. 

The data allowed to be shared for now is limited. According to a news report from Colorado Public Radio, information shared with ICE may include citizenship or immigration status, address, phone number, date of birth, and Medicaid ID. 

If you’ve used Medicaid or Emergency Medicaid in the past, it’s possible that your information may have already been shared with ICE by the federal government. Avoiding medical care now is unlikely to protect you. 

To recap, your clinic is not sharing data with ICE. But Medicaid, the federal program, has shared data with ICE. We do not know how ICE is using this data but we presume it is for the goal of finding out where people live.

Click here to learn more about how we support the community after ICE-related activity in the Western Slope.