27 June 2008

Push to Remove Social Security Numbers from Medicare Cards

John Sterlicchi

Aiming to prevent identity theft, US Senators are pushing a bi-partisan bill that would require the Medicare administration to issue new cards that do not contain Social Security numbers.

US Senator Charles Schumer, and other members of the Senate Finance Committee, said the government is risking seniors’ financial information by putting their full Social Security numbers on their Medicare cards.

“It is unthinkable that Medicare leaves its beneficiaries so wide open to identity theft by continuing to print Social Security numbers on standard identification cards,” Schumer said at a news conference. “Millions of seniors and the disable are put at risk every time they use the card.”

While the Social Security Administration cannot prohibit the Medicare agency from using Social Security numbers, Congress does have that ability.

Currently, the Social Security numbers appear on Medicare cards 40 million beneficiaries carry with them.

Medicare services has been resisting making any adjustments noting they are too costly and alarming to beneficiaries. Federal officials estimate it would cost about $500 million to change their computer systems and take at least three years of planning and another eight years to implement a change.

Earlier this month, the inspector general of Social Security, Patrick O’Carroll, called for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to find an alternative to the present system which puts personal information at risk.

“Displaying such information on Medicare cards unnecessarily places millions of individuals at risk for identity theft,” O’Carroll said in a new report. “We do not believe a federal agency should place more value on convenience than the security of its beneficiaries’ personal information.”

Consumers Union issued a statement to the Federal Trade Commission that stated “federal and state policy makers should adopt new restrictions on the solicitation, use and sale of social security numbers and strong requirements for breach notification.”

The group also warned that the connection between social security numbers and identity theft and the dangers and limitations of over-reliance on the number as an identifier and authenticator has been well-established.

Many private health insurers have stopped printing Social Security numbers on the insurance cards and 31 states have laws that prohibit or restrict their use. And the Department of Defense plans to issue 8 million new identification cards in the next few years that will just have the last four digits of the number.

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