Federal Government Requires Colorado to Share Medicaid Data With Homeland Security
By Bente Birkeland and John Daley | Colorado Public Radio
In January, the state’s flagship safety net hospital, Denver Health, distributed a one-page notice about patient privacy that carried groundshaking implications, especially for Colorado’s immigrant population.
The notice stated that due to federal changes within Medicaid, the federal-state program for hundreds of thousands of low-income and disabled Americans, “limited” personal information could be shared with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Denver Health said the information applied only to people who are not lawfully residing in the U.S and are enrolled in a program called Emergency Medicaid or pregnant and enrolled in Medicaid through Cover All Coloradans. But if a person is in one of those groups,...
