About a year ago, I was stationed in downtown D.C. on an especially chilly spring day, watching hundreds of federal employees line up outside their office buildings.
In a humbling exercise, employees were waiting to test whether their entry badges still worked at the Department of Health and Human Services — or whether they’d be walked back out by security because they were among the 10,000 unlucky ones whose jobs had suddenly been eliminated. I thought back to that day recently as I researched and reported on a significant, under-the-radar proposal from the Office of Personnel Management, which oversees federal workers.
According to a notice posted in December, OPM is seeking personally identifiable medical and pharmaceutical claims information on federal employees and retirees, as well as their family members, who are enrolled in the Federal Employees Health Benefits or Postal Service Health Benefits programs. Just over 8 million Americans get coverage through such plans.
Right now, 65 insurance companies maintain data the agency wants, including information on prescriptions, diagnoses, and treatments.