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WIRED
22-04-2025
- Business
- WIRED
Here's All the Health and Human Services Data DOGE Has Access To
Affiliates from Elon Musk's so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) have significant access to 19 sensitive systems at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), according to a recent court filing. Nine of those are previously undisclosed. This wide-ranging access, which includes a centralized accounting system for all Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS) programs, the cloud for a 'robust' and 'high-volume data warehouse,' and several additional HHS accounting systems that pay government contractors, demonstrates the breadth of DOGE's takeover at the federal agency charged with securing health care for millions of Americans. HHS submitted the filing as part of an ongoing lawsuit. The document—which is related to a motion for preliminary injunction—shows that a total of four DOGE affiliates now have access to the Healthcare Integrated General Ledger Accounting System (HIGLAS), which pays out federal grants and is used for accounting by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). A previous court filing claimed three DOGE operatives had access to HIGLAS, which could theoretically allow them to cut off Medicaid payments to states, according to NPR. HHS did not immediately respond to an official request for comment from WIRED. DOGE's access to some of the databases in the new court filing were first revealed in a March court filing and reporting from NPR and The Guardian. However, the full scope has come into focus as a result of the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations's continued lawsuit attempting to restrict DOGE's data access at HHS, the Department of Labor, and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. As part of the AFL-CIO's motion, the plaintiffs allege the agencies have given DOGE 'unfettered, on-demand access to their most sensitive systems of records' because the affiliates 'invoke the incantation of 'waste, fraud, and abuse.'' According to the plaintiffs, ''waste, fraud, and abuse' are not magic words, and they cannot conjure up a need to grant DOGE Team members on-demand access to Americans' most sensitive and personal information.' As part of the discovery process, federal agencies have been required to disclose which databases DOGE has accessed, which were attached to the plaintiffs' recent motion. Jeffrey Levi, an emeritus professor of health policy and management at the George Washington University's Milken Institute School of Public Health, tells WIRED that 'anything that has the potential of delaying payments to parts of the health system' runs the risk of disrupting care for the millions of Americans that rely on it. Levi notes that places with 'minimal financial flexibility'—like rural hospitals and Federally Qualified Health Centers, which disproportionately serve people who use Medicaid and Medicare—are particularly vulnerable. The filing lists known DOGE affiliates, including Luke Farritor, Marko Elez, Edward Coristine, Rachel Riley, Aram Moghaddassi, Zachary Terrell, and Kyle Schutt, among those who have access to HHS systems. Coristine, who has gone by the name 'big balls' online, previously worked for a company that employed convicted and reformed hackers, WIRED reported. Elez, a young engineer who has worked at Musk's X and SpaceX, has also appeared at the Department of Labor, the Social Security Administration, and the Department of the Treasury. While at the Treasury, WIRED reported, Elez had both read and write access to sensitive payments systems. In early February, Elez briefly resigned from DOGE after racist comments posted by an account he was linked to were discovered by The Wall Street Journal, though Elez returned to DOGE after Musk and Vice President JD Vance posted in defense of him on X. The court filing raises legal and ethical questions around how personal information is currently being treated in the federal government, says Elizabeth Laird, the Center for Democracy and Technology's director of Equity in Civic Technology. 'It just underscores why for so long we have had protections that have really centered someone's right to privacy and [required] consent for sharing that level of sensitivity of information about them,' Laird says. 'Just in this agency, with this level of sensitivity, that's a right that's been stripped away from every person who is included in there.' Below is a chart that details DOGE's access to HHS, complete with the names of the agencies impacted, the Personally Identifiable Information (PII) contained in those agencies, and the DOGE operatives who have, or had, access. This information is contained in the court filing. *Explanations added by WIRED. The rest is recreated from the court filing. DOGE affiliates were given access to HHS systems as a result of three executive orders signed by President Donald Trump, according to an April 8 deposition by Jennifer Wendel, chief information officer at HHS, who is stepping down this spring. The first was the January 20 order that established DOGE's existence; the second was a February order on implementing the DOGE agenda, and the third was an order to eliminate waste, fraud, abuse and data silos. The orders—and in particular the mandate to root out fraud—gave DOGE wide-ranging access to government systems. The team was required to speak with system owners before accessing certain tools, according to Wendel. In theory, the owner could deny access if they felt like DOGE access was not justified. In practice, Wendel said, access at HHS has never been denied. That appears to have been the case even though one DOGE affiliate failed to receive the proper security training needed to access a particularly sensitive system. Before someone is allowed to access the Healthcare Integrated General Ledger Accounting System (HIGLAS) and the Integrated Data Repository (IDR), they're required to go through a security training, according to the April 8 deposition by Wendel and another that occurred on the same day by Garey Rice, the principal deputy assistant secretary for operations at HHS. The depositions come as part of the AFL-CIO lawsuit. During the depositions, an attorney for the plaintiffs tried to ascertain whether DOGE affiliate Aram Moghaddassi had been through the proper training to access the HIGLAS and IDR systems. In a previous government filing, Moghaddassi was not listed as having read-only access to any of the HHS systems, including HIGLAS, despite court records indicating he was detailed to the agency in early March. Rice confirmed that there was no record of Moghaddassi completing the required security briefing. Attorneys for the labor groups tried to figure out why DOGE affiliates Elez and Moghaddassi had access to, for example, the national directory of new hires, a system that tracks child support payments, and which includes sensitive information like social security numbers, mailing address, and employment status. 'In order to determine if there was potential waste, fraud, and abuse within the system,' Wendel responded. 'What kind of fraud, waste and abuse did HHS think might be in the system?' the attorney probed. 'I do not know,' Wendel responded. Wendel testified that she did not believe DOGE operatives had not shown people outside of HHS the records they had access to. However, asked whether the team could take their laptops home and access HHS records remotely, Wendel said yes. 'Do you know if the DOGE team affiliates have literally just shown someone, outside HHS, HHS records?' the attorney asked. 'I do not know that,' Wendel responded. According to the filing, Elez and Moghaddassi previously had access to the 'Expanded Federal Parent Locator Service,' a service that notifies relatives when a child has been placed in foster care, but they have since been 'deactivated,' meaning their access has been revoked. Some of these systems were not actively in use by agencies at HHS. 'We don't use [Integrated Contracts Expert] anymore. APEX replaced that in October,' an employee at HHS tells WIRED. APEX, or Acquisition Performance and Execution, which Farritor also has access to, is the CDC's contract writing and acquisition management system. 'APEX has everything,' the employee says. 'So many details. Amounts paid, approvals, history, contact info, and more.' The filing affirms previous reports that DOGE affiliate Kyle Schutt has access to a database with health records about children who come into the US unaccompanied. Laird tells WIRED that access to this data—which includes biometrics, medical notes, photographs, and information about their sponsors—is particularly concerning. 'What's the reason—if you're looking for fraud, waste, and abuse—to have data about children who are present in the US without their family?' Laird says. 'We're increasingly seeing this type of information being used for purposes other than fraud, waste, and abuse, like immigration enforcement.' As reported by WIRED, DOGE operatives are building a master database at the Department of Homeland Security that includes voting records from Pennsylvania and Florida, Social Security Administration data, and Internal Revenue Service data that has the potential to identify and surveil immigrants at a massive scale. WIRED also reported that DOGE operatives at the DOL have been given access to databases that house the personal information of migrant farm workers, including applicants for temporary work visas. They also had access to information that could be combined with other datasets in order to determine the immigration status of people benefitting from certain federal programs. Federal officials and labor leaders have also raised concerns about DOGE's potential to access unredacted DOL files that would identify corporate whistleblowers, and detailed information about safety inspections at private companies. The most recent court filing that discloses DOGE's data access at the DOL is from March 29. It claims Elez had access to four record systems at the DOL and had 'not accessed any of the systems,' but had installed Python and a tool for editing software code. The systems included databases that manage federal employees' access to government buildings and systems, and a database that tracks unemployment benefit claims. Earlier this month, thousands of employees at HHS agencies, including doctors and scientists at the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, were purged from the agency as DOGE continues to drastically slash the size of the federal workforce. The cuts also hit some administrative employees at HHS who manage critical cybersecurity infrastructure and hundreds of millions of dollars worth of federal contracts.
Yahoo
31-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
A 25-year-old DOGE staffer who resigned over racist posts is back in government with new access to sensitive systems
A DOGE staffer, who was forced to resign after being linked to racist social media posts, is back in government with fresh access to sensitive systems. Marko Elez has been assigned to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services since March 5, per court filings. A 25-year-old DOGE staffer who resigned after being linked to a social media account that shared racist posts is officially back on the government's payroll. According to court filings, Marko Elez now has access to sensitive systems at the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Labor. Elez resigned from his role at DOGE in early February after a report from the Wall Street Journal linked him to a now-deleted account that shared posts including one claiming he was "racist before it was cool." The account also reportedly shared a post calling to normalize 'Indian hate,' and another that suggested Gaza and Israel be 'wiped off the face of the Earth." At the time, the White House confirmed to the Journal that Elez had resigned from his government role. However, the recent court filings reveal Elez is still working as a Labor Department aide in connection with DOGE. The court documents state Elez had been detailed to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services since March 5 and is also assigned to the United States Digital Service (USDS). Elez has access to several sensitive systems within the Department of Health and Human Services including the National Directory of New Hires and the Healthcare Integrated General Ledger Accounting System (HIGLAS), which is primarily used to manage and track payments related to Medicare and Medicaid programs. At the Department of Labor, Elez had access to four more sensitive systems: USAccess, DOL Homeland Security Presidential Directive 12, DOL Directory Resource Administrator (DRA), and Unemployment Insurance Data and Related Records. The court filing notes he is the only DOL employee who has an employment relationship with DOGE and has been granted permission to access sensitive systems at the agency. Elez has also installed two programs onto DOL systems: a code editor called Visual Studio Code and Python, a programming language, according to court filings. The Department of Labor said it was aware Elez was simultaneously assigned to or employed by another four agencies, not including USDS. Representatives for DOGE, the Department of Labor and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Fortune. The 25-year-old was working in the United States Department of the Treasury when the Wall Street Journal linked him to the racist account. After the news broke, Elon Musk, JD Vance, and U.S. President Donald Trump advocated for Elez's reinstatement. Musk polled X users on whether he should bring back the DOGE staffer after making 'inappropriate statements" while Vance said in a post on X he didn't think "stupid social media activity should ruin a kid's life." 'We shouldn't reward journalists who try to destroy people. Ever,' Vance said. 'So I say bring him back. If he's a bad dude or a terrible member of the team, fire him for that.' Trump later said he was 'with the vice president' when questioned about Elez and Vance's response during a news conference. Elez's brief stint at the Treasury also made headlines after it was revealed he was "mistakenly" given edit access over the department's payment systems. In an affidavit, a Treasury official stated that Elez was 'mistakenly' given 'read/write permissions instead of read-only' in an error that was 'promptly corrected.' The edit permissions were granted during Elez's supervised, walk-through session, and an initial investigation found that 'no unauthorized actions had taken place,' the official said. In a separate court filing, another federal official said that Elez violated Treasury policies by emailing a spreadsheet containing personal information to two other members of the Trump administration. The official said he sent the sensitive information unencrypted and without prior approval, violating the Bureau of the Fiscal Service's policies on handling sensitive information. This story was originally featured on
Yahoo
08-02-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
DOGE working with two Trump health appointees to examine Medicare and Medicaid books
The Trump administration has tasked two top political appointees with monitoring the Department of Government Efficiency's access to key systems inside the health agency responsible for managing Medicare and Medicaid, according to internal emails obtained by POLITICO. The appointees, Kim Brandt and John Brooks, are leading the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services' 'collaboration' with the unofficial cost-cutting group led by Elon Musk, including 'ensuring appropriate access to CMS systems and technology.' 'We are taking a thoughtful approach to see where there may be opportunities for more effective and efficient use of resources in line with meeting the goals of President Trump,' said one of the emails, which were sent to CMS staffers. Brandt, who spent the last four years as a health care lobbyist, is the agency's new deputy administrator and chief operating officer. Brooks, who ran a health consulting and research firm before joining the Trump transition, is deputy administrator and chief policy and regulatory officer. They both worked at CMS during the first Trump administration and were reappointed to senior roles at the agency in recent weeks. CMS earlier this week said in a statement that it had assigned 'two senior agency veterans' to work with DOGE. But it did not name Brooks and Brandt or specify that they were Trump political appointees, rather than career officials. On Friday, the agency told POLITICO that the DOGE representatives are scrutinizing CMS systems technology and the funds that flow through it with a focus on "fraud and waste." That access is read only, meaning they cannot make any changes, and does not allow them to see any personal health information for Medicare or Medicaid enrollees. DOGE also does not have access to CMS' Healthcare Integrated General Ledger Accounting System, which contains sensitive financial information about providers and other organizations with financial ties to the entitlement programs. The internal disclosure comes as DOGE representatives arrived at the agency earlier this week, sparking confusion and unease within the building over the extent of their access to critical payment and contracting systems. The DOGE team has fueled efforts to radically shrink USAID, as well as seek staff and spending reductions in other parts of the federal government. CMS manages roughly $1.5 trillion in health spending between the Medicare and Medicaid programs, including a complex set of payments to the hospitals and doctors that care for the nation's most vulnerable patients. Republicans and Democrats have long called for stepped-up efforts to root out overbilling and other fraudulent activity that has driven up federal health spending. But DOGE's involvement has raised fears that Musk and his deputies could take drastic action with little understanding of the consequences for those reliant on Medicare, which serves elderly people and those with disabilities, and Medicaid, which serves low-income people. CMS leaders have so far offered little insight into the changes under consideration, writing in an email to staffers only that 'components are already generating ideas on government efficiency, and we are looking forward to gathering direct input from staff as well.' The fresh focus on cost cutting comes as the Trump administration has vowed to drastically shrink the federal bureaucracy — and as Republicans prepare to seek billions of dollars in savings from health programs managed by CMS, like Medicaid and Obamacare, to help fund a sweeping tax cut bill. That legislative effort could include reining in the federal government's share of funding for states' Medicaid expansion populations — Obamacare incentivized states to cover a broader swath of low-income people — as well as tying health benefits to work and targeting other spending areas deemed to be waste, fraud or abuse. Mehmet Oz, Trump's nominee to run CMS, is still awaiting Senate confirmation. The television star and cardiothoracic surgeon in recent days has met with senators on Capitol Hill to build support for his confirmation. In the interim, Trump officials have moved swiftly to build out the agency's political leadership. Stephanie Carlton, a former McKinsey consultant hired as chief of staff, is serving as CMS' acting administrator until Oz arrives at the agency — a move that displaced the senior career official initially put in charge on a temporary basis. The agency in recent weeks also installed Peter Nelson — a critic of the Biden administration's expansion of Obamacare subsidies to millions more Americans — as head of the CMS office responsible for running the Obamacare marketplaces and implementing many of its provisions. Rebekah Armstrong, a former senior adviser to Senate HELP Chair Bill Cassidy (R-La.), is now in charge of CMS' Office of Legislation. She spent three years as a lobbyist for insurance industry trade association America's Health Insurance Plans in between stints on Capitol Hill. Robert King contributed to this report.
Politico
07-02-2025
- Business
- Politico
DOGE working with two Trump health appointees to examine Medicare and Medicaid books
The Trump administration has tasked two top political appointees with monitoring the Department of Government Efficiency's access to key systems inside the health agency responsible for managing Medicare and Medicaid, according to internal emails obtained by POLITICO. The appointees, Kim Brandt and John Brooks, are leading the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services' 'collaboration' with the unofficial cost-cutting group led by Elon Musk, including 'ensuring appropriate access to CMS systems and technology.' 'We are taking a thoughtful approach to see where there may be opportunities for more effective and efficient use of resources in line with meeting the goals of President Trump,' said one of the emails, which were sent to CMS staffers. Brandt, who spent the last four years as a health care lobbyist, is the agency's new deputy administrator and chief operating officer. Brooks, who ran a health consulting and research firm before joining the Trump transition, is deputy administrator and chief policy and regulatory officer. They both worked at CMS during the first Trump administration and were reappointed to senior roles at the agency in recent weeks. CMS earlier this week said in a statement that it had assigned 'two senior agency veterans' to work with DOGE. But it did not name Brooks and Brandt or specify that they were Trump political appointees, rather than career officials. On Friday, the agency told POLITICO that the DOGE representatives are scrutinizing CMS systems technology and the funds that flow through it with a focus on 'fraud and waste.' That access is read only, meaning they cannot make any changes, and does not allow them to see any personal health information for Medicare or Medicaid enrollees. DOGE also does not have access to CMS' Healthcare Integrated General Ledger Accounting System, which contains sensitive financial information about providers and other organizations with financial ties to the entitlement programs. The internal disclosure comes as DOGE representatives arrived at the agency earlier this week, sparking confusion and unease within the building over the extent of their access to critical payment and contracting systems. The DOGE team has fueled efforts to radically shrink USAID, as well as seek staff and spending reductions in other parts of the federal government. CMS manages roughly $1.5 trillion in health spending between the Medicare and Medicaid programs, including a complex set of payments to the hospitals and doctors that care for the nation's most vulnerable patients. Republicans and Democrats have long called for stepped-up efforts to root out overbilling and other fraudulent activity that has driven up federal health spending. But DOGE's involvement has raised fears that Musk and his deputies could take drastic action with little understanding of the consequences for those reliant on Medicare, which serves elderly people and those with disabilities, and Medicaid, which serves low-income people. CMS leaders have so far offered little insight into the changes under consideration, writing in an email to staffers only that 'components are already generating ideas on government efficiency, and we are looking forward to gathering direct input from staff as well.' The fresh focus on cost cutting comes as the Trump administration has vowed to drastically shrink the federal bureaucracy — and as Republicans prepare to seek billions of dollars in savings from health programs managed by CMS, like Medicaid and Obamacare, to help fund a sweeping tax cut bill. That legislative effort could include reining in the federal government's share of funding for states' Medicaid expansion populations — Obamacare incentivized states to cover a broader swath of low-income people — as well as tying health benefits to work and targeting other spending areas deemed to be waste, fraud or abuse. Mehmet Oz, Trump's nominee to run CMS, is still awaiting Senate confirmation. The television star and cardiothoracic surgeon in recent days has met with senators on Capitol Hill to build support for his confirmation. In the interim, Trump officials have moved swiftly to build out the agency's political leadership. Stephanie Carlton, a former McKinsey consultant hired as chief of staff, is serving as CMS' acting administrator until Oz arrives at the agency — a move that displaced the senior career official initially put in charge on a temporary basis. The agency in recent weeks also installed Peter Nelson — a critic of the Biden administration's expansion of Obamacare subsidies to millions more Americans — as head of the CMS office responsible for running the Obamacare marketplaces and implementing many of its provisions. Rebekah Armstrong, a former senior adviser to Senate HELP Chair Bill Cassidy (R-La.), is now in charge of CMS' Office of Legislation. She spent three years as a lobbyist for insurance industry trade association America's Health Insurance Plans in between stints on Capitol Hill. Robert King contributed to this report.
