We have been talking about Immigrant Health in Washington state for years. Getting Dreamers Insurance. How to get Health Insurance with an ITIN. When the Immigrant Medicaid Data was shared with Department of Homeland Security, We were more than a little upset.
One of the first people that Suzie enrolled was a refugee from Central America. It was an incredibly dangerous journey and they were needing medical attention to recover. Without Apple Health, they would not have received the care that they needed.
During Trump 1.0, Matt had a mom refuse to complete an application for their children over fear of the father being deported. That is a monstrous choice that no mother should have to make that he witnessed first hand. It’s why we are very protective of data and who we hand it over to.
Yes, some very cruel individuals like to threaten folks with public charge with all programs. It is important to note: The public charge rule will not consider any other federal or state benefits. That includes SNAP, WIC, CHIP, school lunches, Medicaid, Section 8 housing benefits, food banks, shelters, COVID-related medical care, and many more. So sometimes even we can not overcome fears on what will be used against families.
We can say that we have a couple of the insurance nerds at the office that used to ran one of the enrollment centers so we are real familiar with the Healthplanfinder for immigrants and the data that goes back and forth there. They don’t exchange medical data. There is a couple of Federal Hubs that they verify data with however those require the SSN.
The information is used for enrollment and states right on the front page it will not be used for immigration enforcement.
Medicaid falls under the Healthcare Authority’s control. If you don’t have access then here is a better description on what was taken.
The following programs were impacted by the breach:
Alien Emergency Medical
Apple Health Expansion
Civil Transitions
Non-Citizen Pregnant Women
Medicaid Family Planning (Take Charge)
The Alien Emergency Medical is a catastrophic program like dying of Cancer level patients. It’s one that no one wants to be on but delivers care to the patient and funds to the providers.
The Apple Health Expansion was limited to 16,000 people low income people and got them healthcare. It was paid for using state funds. It was done on a first come first served basis.
We don’t work directly with Civil Transitions, Non-Citizen Pregnant Women and Medicaid Family Planning as there are some programs that are not common on the Healthplanfinder.
Undocumented Immigrants make up about 24% of the uninsured in Washington State. Which is a priority to gain coverage to reduce the uninsured rate in the state.
At the office level, data is kept encrypted and not sold or shared expect to enroll people into insurance plans. We do everything in our power to prevent data breeches at a local level.
It is going to take the Legislatures at the STATE level to do something to prevent data from being stolen again.
It is going to take the Legislatures at the Federal Level to do something about the stolen Information at the Federal Level.
Bonus: Privacy Notice
The Washington Healthplanfinder Privacy Notice talks about their commitment to Privacy and provides contact information if you would like further assistance. The Master Person Index (MPI) is administered by the Healthcare Authority. Here is their statement:
