As ICE taps Medicaid database, hospitals wrestle with warning immigrant patients

THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION’S MOVE to give deportation officials access to Medicaid data is putting hospitals and states in a bind as they weigh whether to alert immigrant patients that their personal information, including home addresses, could be used in efforts to remove them from the country.

Warning patients could deter them from signing up for a program called Emergency Medicaid, through which the government reimburses hospitals for the cost of emergency treatment for immigrants who are ineligible for standard Medicaid coverage.