The deal on medical privacy was simple enough that most people never had to think about it: what you tell a doctor stays between you and the doctor, so that you tell the doctor the truth. That deal is being broken from the top: Medicaid enrollment files handed to immigration enforcement, federal health databases opened to agencies with nothing to do with health, and no warrant anywhere in the process. What it buys isn't safety. It's people who stop filling prescriptions, skip prenatal care, and lie to the emergency room, which is precisely how untreated illness and outbreaks spread to everyone else. Bar federal agencies from sharing health records for immigration or general law enforcement purposes without a judicial warrant, and write reproductive and gender-affirming care privacy into statute.
