From the New York Times news service, although curiously I cannot seem to find it in the New York Times website itself:
Social Security officials, concerned about the risk of identity theft, are calling for immediate action to remove Social Security numbers from the Medicare cards used by millions of Americans.
But Medicare officials have resisted the proposal, saying it would be costly and impractical.
In a new report, the inspector general of Social Security, Patrick P. O'Carroll Jr., says "immediate action is needed."
"Displaying such information on Medicare cards unnecessarily places millions of individuals at risk for identity theft," O'Carroll said. "We do not believe a federal agency should place more value on convenience than the security of its beneficiaries' personal information."
4 comments:
Here is the report:
http://www.ssa.gov/oig/ADOBEPDF/A-08-08-18026.pdf
Why is the SSA OIG looking at something CMS is doing? I would think the SSA OIG would have enough things that SSA is screwing up to look at keep them busy.
Is this a joke? SSN's are the basis for medicare eligibility verification and claims processing. What alternative is there--assigning everyone on Medicare a new, Medicare-only claim number? It is getting to the point where the identity-theft hysteria is sweeping away common sense.
A more accurate representation is that SSA's OIG is pressing for medicare to remove the SSN from Medicare cards. It is probably a fair representation that the rest of SSA has no strong formal opinions on the issue and defers to HHS and CMS for doing whatever they deem responsible. The SSA OIG has a tendency to view any use of the SSN they don't agree with as a use that would imperil the number itself, making it their concern. Note that they did not confer or coordinate this with the HHS OIG either.
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