Medicare Identity Theft Prevention Act of 2012

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 1509) to amend title II of the Social Security Act to prohibit the inclusion of Social Security account numbers on Medicare cards, as amended.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and insert extraneous materials in the Record.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Today, the House considers legislation that has long been a bipartisan priority of the Committee on Ways and Means, protecting seniors from identity theft. Identity theft is a lasting and devastating crime. Victims spend years having to prove who they are while monitoring credit reports, fending off collection agencies for charges they never made, or the IRS for taxes they don't owe. Some are even picked up by law enforcement for crimes committed by the ID thief using their name. Seniors have every reason to be concerned.

According to the Department of Justice, 8.6 million households experienced identity theft in 2010. Over 1 million of these households are headed by seniors at risk of having their Social Security numbers stolen. Fraud involving government documents accounted for 27 percent of the identity theft complaints in 2011, making it the most common and fastest growing form of identity theft complaint according to the Federal Trade Commission.

Mr. Speaker, we know Americans are told not to carry their Social Security cards in case a wallet or purse is lost or stolen. Yet seniors are told they must carry their Medicare card which displays their Social Security number. Not only does this not make sense; it puts seniors at risk. The largest seniors organization in America agrees. According to AARP:

All Medicare patients must carry a benefits card that

displays their Social Security number. Such easy assess to

sensitive information makes the cards a hot target for

identity thieves who want to file false claims.

Mr. Speaker, the Medicare Identity Theft Prevention Act of 2012 requires the Secretary of Health and Human Services, in consultation with the Commissioner of Social Security, to take action to ensure Social Security numbers no longer are used on Medicare cards. It requires the Secretary to develop a cost-effective way to do that, with as little impact as possible on Medicare beneficiaries and health care providers.

Further, funds from the Medicare Improvement Fund are made available to pay for implementation costs. According to CBO, the costs of this bill are fully offset and would not increase the deficit.

Lastly, the bill directs GAO to conduct a study to determine whether the Medicare program should use smart card technology, an idea advanced by my colleagues, Jim Gerlach of Pennsylvania and Earl Blumenauer of Oregon, to prevent waste, fraud, and abuse in the Medicare program.

Members should know this isn't the first time CMS has been directed to act. Starting in 2002, GAO first called for ending the use of Social Security numbers on government documents. Then in 2005, fiscal year 2006, the Labor-HHS bill urged the Secretary to accelerate planning for removing Social Security numbers and asked for a report. And then in 2007, OMB issued a directive to all Federal agencies to develop plans for reducing the use of Social Security numbers. And then in 2008, my colleague Lloyd Doggett and I brought a bill to the floor that passed by voice vote to end the use of Social Security numbers on Medicare cards. Most recently, at an August 2012 Ways and Means Committee joint subcommittee hearing, GAO questioned CMS's lack of a serious plan to stop displaying the Social Security number.

While CMS fails to act, both the public and private sectors are working to protect their customers and businesses from identity theft. The Departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs are removing Social Security numbers from their ID and medical cards, and I applaud them for taking that action. Private health insurance and many others ended the use of Social Security numbers on public documents a long time ago. And even CMS knows better. It won't allow insurers in the Medicare Advantage and part D drug benefit programs to use Social Security numbers on their enrollees' cards.

The time to protect our nearly 50 million Americans carrying Medicare cards with their personal information is long overdue. It's high time that Congress passes this commonsense bill. There's no reason why American seniors have to continue to be put at risk of ID theft. We need to act right now, and I urge all of my colleagues to vote ``yes'' and pass the Medicare Identity Theft Prevention Act today.

With that, Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Kansas (Ms. Jenkins), a member of the Committee on Ways and Means.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Gerlach), who is a member of the Committee on Ways and Means.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Herger), also a member on the Ways and Means Committee and chairman on the Subcommittee on Health.

I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Paulsen), a member of the Ways and Means Committee and acting chairman of the Subcommittee on Human Resources.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Marchant), a member of the Committee on Ways and Means.

Thank you, Mr. Doggett.

I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, despite increasing pressure from this committee and this House, CMS has refused to act to remove Social Security numbers from Medicare cards. If CMS won't act, we must. This commonsense bill is a vital step in protecting our Nation's seniors from identity theft, and we can't afford to put seniors at risk any longer. Medicare beneficiaries want, need, and deserve better. I urge all my colleagues to vote ``yes,'' and I hope the Senate will act immediately to pass this legislation.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I thank Chairman Johnson for his leadership on this, and I concur fully with the remarks he made.

In 2008, I filed this piece of legislation with Chairman Johnson's help. At that time, we worked together and passed it through the House, and the Senate failed to act.

And since that time, whether it was under a Republican or Democratic administration, there has not been sufficient priority placed on this by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to address this question of privacy. It is a serious matter. It clearly requires legislation, and this time, hopefully, the Senate will respond to our bipartisan initiative and get it passed into law.

There are, indeed, about 48 million Americans, seniors, individuals with disabilities, who are carrying in their wallet or purse today something that makes them vulnerable to identity theft, and that something is their Medicare card.

Apart from the Social Security card itself, the Medicare card is the most frequently issued government document that displays a Social Security number, and that practice invites foul play.

It was back in 2007 when the Bush administration, recognizing this danger

by the overuse of Social Security numbers, sent out a directive to Federal agencies to eliminate the use of Social Security numbers and explore alternative identifiers. Despite this directive, Medicare has not yet taken appropriate steps to remove the numbers from Medicare cards.

Although we have bipartisan agreement on the severity of the problem, we also have had bipartisan administrative inaction when it comes to addressing it. Clearly, we need congressional action.

To protect both the savings and the peace of mind of Medicare beneficiaries, this bipartisan legislation would require Medicare to take steps that private companies, the Department of Defense, and the Department of Veterans Affairs have already taken to protect the identities of those that they serve.

Every time that a senior or an individual with disabilities hands over their Medicare card to a health care provider or elsewhere, they are handing over the keys to their financial security. With increasing sophistication by identity thieves, inaction again here is simply unacceptable.

Seniors who have saved, who have built a lifetime of financial security and their reputations are all at stake. Their savings and their credit should not be put needlessly at risk if someone steals a Medicare card or it gets misplaced or left with a provider by mistake.

Medicare should make sure that it does no harm to the financial security and credit rating of those that it serves with health care security. This act will help to ensure that the government better protects our seniors, denying thieves access to this critical data. Inaction would jeopardize in a continuing way the safety of so many.

This legislation, when we previously introduced it, was supported by Consumers Union, the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, the Silver Haired Legislature, nationally and in Texas, as well as the Elder Justice Coalition.

Seniors confront many threats to retirement security these days, but this bill will be directed toward one that we can do something about immediately, and that's those who would swindle our seniors.

I urge adoption of the measure, and reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, one addition to this bill from 2008 deals with the question of Medicare fraud. I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer), the cosponsor of legislation dealing with that and a member of the Ways and Means Health Subcommittee, to discuss this important addition.

I yield 2 minutes to the ranking member of the Health Subcommittee on the Commerce Committee, the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pallone).

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Texas, my colleague, Chairman Johnson, and I hope the Senate will respond this time to our action.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I object to the vote on the ground that a quorum is not present and make the point of order that a quorum is not present.

Mr. Speaker, I want to first acknowledge the hard work and leadership of my colleague on the Ways and Means Committee, Mr. Johnson of Texas, as well as our committee chairman, Mr. Camp of Michigan. Both gentlemen recognize the urgency of finding practical solutions for protecting seniors and taxpayers against easily preventable Medicare waste, fraud and improper payments, and the ever increasing threat of identity theft.

Mr. Speaker, whenever someone in Washington proposes a new idea for shrinking costs and saving precious taxpayer dollars, we usually receive a barrage of questions from folks concerned that they will have to do with less and possibly see services they depend upon curtailed in some way.

This legislation we're considering today contains provisions that would kick-start a critically important process that ultimately may allow Congress to use commonsense technology in cutting an estimated $60 billion a year in improper and fraudulent Medicare payments while making sure seniors enrolled in Medicare receive the care and treatment they have earned.

We're attempting to cut costs without restricting access to care. Specifically, this legislation authorizes a

study by the Government Accountability Office examining the benefits of a proposed pilot program to modernize the Medicare card that almost every senior carries with him or her in a wallet or a pocketbook. Under the proposed pilot program as introduced in legislation by my colleague Congressman Blumenauer and myself, as part of the Medicare Common Access Card Act, smart card technology would be used to protect personal information of Medicare participants, prevent phantom billing for procedures that were never performed or products that were never purchased, and speed payments to doctors and hospitals while reducing costly billing errors.

While today's Medicare card provides seniors access to the health care services they need, that small piece of plastic can provide the narrow opening unscrupulous individuals exploit to snatch identities and cheat taxpayers and seniors out of billions of dollars every year.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services estimates that waste, fraud, and abuse cost the Medicare program about $60 billion a year. Nearly 10 percent of the entire annual Medicare budget--or approximately $48 billion a year--is lost to improper payments, according to a report issued by the Government Accountability Office. That's a significant amount of human resources and financial resources that are better used helping our seniors pay for hospital visits, prescription drugs, and other vital medical care.

The Department of Defense has issued more than 20 million secure smart cards to authenticate and verify access for access to programs and facilities. To date, the Department of Defense reports that not a single common access card has been counterfeited.

We cannot stop improper payments in the Medicare system until we find a way to know and to verify who is authorized to provide and receive benefits. A comprehensive study is an important first step that will make sure we get the job done right for taxpayers, seniors, doctors, and other health care providers.

Taxpayers and seniors deserve the protection against identity theft and fraud that this legislation would provide, and I urge my colleagues to begin the process of putting in place a simple, low-cost solution for bringing the Medicare card into the 21st century, and I thank the gentleman for leading this effort.

I appreciate the gentleman's courtesy, and I strongly identify with the persistence and the eloquence from Chairman Johnson and my friend, Mr. Doggett, to deal with this problem of identity theft.

The hearing was a little unnerving. I appreciate the follow-through and, hopefully, something will happen. I identify strongly with the arguments you made on behalf of it.

But I would like to focus, if I could, on one other element because it's directly related. And I see my good friend, Mr. Gerlach, is here on the floor, and I anticipate will be speaking to it as well.

We should be concerned about maybe learning another lesson from the Department of Defense, which, as the chairman mentioned, is already using this for their purposes. Being able to use an opportunity for a Common Access Card for Medicare will have very important application to the area of rampant Medicare fraud.

Sixty billion dollars is the number we have heard in our subcommittee. It could be more, it could be less, but it's a huge sum of money, and it compounds going forward.

Our first concern, however, should be about the quality of care for the senior citizens who receive Medicare. And the Common Access Card, being able to digitally track this information, provides security for these transactions, makes it less likely that there will be mistakes, be able to follow up and follow through.

Second, it will, in fact, help us stop fraud. This is an area that has been relentlessly abused, where people order, there are changes in the order, sometimes orders are actually made that are entirely different than what people had requested.

Having this secure card will enable people to be able to have the security of the transaction, know where it's at, greater accuracy of billing, track mistakes, stop fraud. And I cannot say strongly enough that I think it's important for us to move.

I appreciate the work that was done putting a study over the next 2 years about this provision. But with all due respect, I hope, as this legislation works its way through Congress--and I hope that it is yet enacted while we are still here for the 112th Congress--that we're able to be serious not just about a 2-year study. This is an area in which we ought to be able to implement pilot projects right now across the country.

It would make a difference for the administration. I think there's no question we could come to scale very quickly, help senior citizens and the reliability of their Medicare coverage, reduce fraud, and allow government to track our activities going forward.

There's a lot of talk about the fiscal cliff and the need to save money and the back and forth that's going on here. But this provision that Mr. Gerlach and I are advancing is a simple, commonsense, bipartisan proposal that would help us right now improve service, save money, and improve the reliability of the system.

I would hope that this is the sort of provision that would find favor with our colleagues in the House, and with the administration, working together, we can implement those pilot projects sooner rather than later and have broader application for great, positive effect for Medicare, for the taxpayers.

Mr. Speaker, I support H.R. 1509, the Medicare Identity Theft Prevention Act. There has been longstanding bipartisan support-- led by Ways and Means Members Lloyd Doggett and Sam Johnson--for removing Social Security numbers from Medicare beneficiary cards. A similar bill passed the House all the way back in 2008, but the Senate failed to act. No progress has been made on this issue in the intervening years.

That said, I must express concern about violating regular order in bringing this bill to the floor today. There are technical edits that we believe are important to make before it is signed into law. Unfortunately, because it didn't move through the committee process, such changes are impossible under the suspension of the rules.

Removing Social Security numbers is one step to protecting beneficiaries from identity theft. The Social Security number is especially valuable to identity thieves as it serves as the key to authenticating an individual's identity in order to open accounts or obtain other benefits in the victim's name. Identity theft can be particularly devastating to seniors because their incomes are so modest.

We have held hearings on these issues and our Members have voted for these protections numerous times. No one can question our commitment here. But I would urge that we work to make sure that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and the Social Security Administration are provided appropriate funds for such a large undertaking as its been the cost and complexity which has held up this issue for so long.

The Social Security number is printed on the Medicare card beneficiaries carry in their wallets. It is used for communication between the beneficiary and Medicare, providers billing Medicare, enrollment transactions with Medicare Advantage plans and Medicare prescription drug plans, and communications within and between Medicare's 50 internal information systems and between Medicare and the Social Security Administration.

This is not as simple as printing new cards as some would lead us to believe. It requires revising numerous computer systems as well as significant beneficiary and provider education. And, there are serious risks to beneficiaries' access to care and out-of-pocket costs if mistakes are made.

The cost will likely be in the hundreds of millions. Yet, the Medicare agency and Social Security Administration have been underfunded by Republicans for years. They are working with minimal administrative budgets. This bill improves on the 2008 legislation passed with bipartisan support because it provides funding. But we must make sure that the funding is sufficient and that both the Medicare agency and Social Security Administration equitably access these funds.