Senators Challenge OPM Over Federal Employee Health Data Collection

A group of Senate Democrats is again pressing the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) to suspend plans to collect detailed health insurance data on federal employees, retirees, and beneficiaries.

In a letter to OPM Director Scott Kupor, the six senators - led by Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) and Sen. Adam Schiff (D-CA) - expressed concern over data privacy and questioned why OPM needs data on such a granular level.

The senators are asking OPM to halt implementation of the data collection plan and publish a “field-by-field necessity analysis” explaining the statutory purpose for collecting each type of data. They also want OPM to detail safeguards for protecting employees’ privacy and limiting access to and sharing of the information.

The senators also wrote to OPM about the issue in April but said they have yet to receive a response.

Questions Remain Over Personally Identifiable Information

The dispute dates to December 2025, when OPM outlined plans for Federal Employees Health Benefits (FEHB) and Postal Service Health Benefits (PSHB) carriers to submit claims-level data containing extensive information about enrollees.

In July 2026, OPM said it would protect privacy by pseudonymizing portions of beneficiaries’ medical records containing personally identifiable information (PII), including names, Social Security numbers, plan subscriber IDs, and street addresses.

But the data would still include information such as birth year, ZIP code, sex, provider names, claim numbers, medical procedures, and diagnoses.

“In combination, these features create an extraordinarily detailed longitudinal health history that remains linkable to a specific person,” the senators wrote. “OPM itself maintains the mechanism needed to reconnect the pseudonymized history to the individual, negating any intended anonymization of data.”

The senators also expressed concern that the records would be stored for 30 years, which they say “materially increases” the chance for misuse from within the government or from a security breach by outside actors.

OPM Response

OPM says the data collection is part of its efforts to strengthen oversight of federal health benefits and identify potential waste, fraud, and abuse.

“OPM is focused on eliminating fraud, waste and abuse in federal benefits plans, while ensuring personally identifiable information is protected,” said OPM spokesperson Kiki Nyoh to Federal News Network.

OPM General Counsel Kurt Dykstra told KFF News that the claims information could demonstrate “potential anomalies in usage patterns that could be related to the individual, but really also could be related to the provider, the treater, the clinic — whoever it is that’s actually providing the care.”

Records deemed suspicious would be sent to the OPM Inspector General for further review.