Article - June 27, 2008 - SeniourJournal.com

Effort Grows to Protect Seniors by Removing Social Security Number from Medicare Card

''Social Security frustrated with refusal to change by Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services'

Social Security says don’t carry your card on you, someone could get the number and use it to steal your identity. Medicare tells senior citizen to always carry their Medicare card, even though it has their Social Security number prominently displayed. Social Security has been trying to get Medicare to come up with a new card and identification system and, finally, they are getting some help in this effort to protect older Americans from identification theft.

USA Today reports that Sen. Chuck Schumer, New York Democrat, and other members of the Senate Finance Committee are pushing a bipartisan bill that would require the Medicare administration to issue new cards that do not contain the numbers. 
The Senators are likely to get considerable support from the Social Security Administration after a report in May by the agency’s inspector general said, “While we recognize SSA cannot prohibit CMS from using SSNs as its primary beneficiary identifier, we believe it can help reduce the potential threats to SSN integrity by taking a proactive role in supporting legislation that would mandate the removal of SSNs from Medicare cards.”

By printing Social Security numbers on Medicare cards, the federal government is leaving seniors and disabled Americans vulnerable to identity theft, Sen. Chuck Schumer told the newspaper.

Full story


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