A newly reported failure of the Trump administration’s ability to handle sensitive private information in the social programs it is tasked with operating triggered a fresh wave of anger over the weekend after it was revealed that healthcare providers’ Social Security numbers were made public as part of a faulty Medicare portal rollout.
The Washington Post discovered the compromised database and alerted the administration last week, before publishing a story about it on Friday, after efforts had been made to protect the sensitive information from further compromise. According to the Post:
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) last year created a directory to help seniors look up which doctors and medical providers accept which insurance plans, framing it as an overdue improvement and part of the Trump administration’s initiative to modernize health care technology.
But a publicly accessible database used to populate the directory contains some of the providers’ Social Security numbers, linked to their names and other identifying information. For at least several weeks, CMS made the database available for public use as part of its data transparency efforts.
While the reporting noted that the files were “not immediately visible to users who [visited] the provider directory,” lawmakers and experts said the compromised information would be a treasure trove for fraudsters.“
The more we learn about how the Trump Administration handles the people’s most sensitive data, the clearer their incompetence becomes.”
Critics pounced on the new reporting, calling it “yet another mess-up by the Team Trump” and only the latest evidence that the administration cannot and should not be trusted to protect the nation’s most successful anti-poverty programs or the sensitive personal data of the American people who entrust the government with that information.
“Over and over again, the Trump administration is exposing private Social Security data,” said Social Security Works, an advocacy group that serves as a public watchdog for the nation’s social programs.
The compromised database, said the group, “is a goldmine for identity thieves, scammers, and foreign governments. And it is undermining the very foundation of our Social Security system.”
“This is a failure by this administration,” said Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) in response to the reporting. “Exposing Social Security numbers, whether patients or providers, is unacceptable.”
Rep. Richard Neal (D-Mass.), the ranking member of the House committee that oversees the Medicare program, put the onus on his Republican colleagues in Congress.
“The more we learn about how the Trump Administration handles the people’s most sensitive data, the clearer their incompetence becomes,” Neal told the Post in a statement. “Do House Republicans need to see their own data exposed before they do right by their constituents and act?”
In March, as Common Dreams reported at the time, a whistleblower filed a complaint with the Social Security Administration accusing a former staffer with Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), run for a time by right-wing billionaire Elon Musk, of trying to share information from SSA databases with his private employer.
Since the outset of Trump’s second term, DOGE’s meddling with Social Security and Trump’s undermining of the program have been the source of deep anger and concerns among the program’s defenders.
In a social media post on Saturday citing the whistleblower allegations from March, Rep. John Larson (D-Conn.) said, “For more than a year, ‘DOGE’ has been combing through the American people’s records. They want to use your data to overturn elections and profit in the private sector. Enough! This administration must be held accountable for this massive data breach!
On Friday, responding to the Post’s new reporting about the compromised database of physicians’ private information, Larsen condemned Republicans for their ongoing and pervasive failures in the face of Trump’s malfeasance and incompetence.
DOGE, said Larsen, “has been in your data for more than a year. We just learned that physicians’ Social Security numbers were publicly exposed in an online portal launched by ‘DOGE’ officials.”
“If this isn’t enough for Republicans to act,” he asked, “where will they draw the line?”