A group of Senate and House Democrats is asking the Consumer Product Safety Commission to suspend a program that collects personally identifiable medical records from Americans who visit emergency rooms. They argue the collection exceeds the agency's statutory authority, and, in the part that turns a data policy story into a health story, that people who fear their emergency visit will land in a federal database may delay or skip care they need.
That second claim is about behavior, not an established finding for this program, and it should be read that way. But it is the reason the letter is worth attention from anyone who has been to an emergency department in the past year.
