mr. chairman , i yield myself 2 minutes . 
mr. chairman , everyone in this house and everyone in this country knows that identity theft is one of the fastest growing crimes of our decade and creates a nightmare for those who become victims . 
identity thieves make off with millions of dollars each day , and each day more than a thousand people are being defrauded . 
we just saw millions of credit card numbers stolen from the visa and the mastercard distribution centers . 
the federal trade commission has said that identity theft is the top consumer complaint . 
we all know how credit can be destroyed , earned income can be taken , and a rejection for everything from a college loan to a mortgage can be done . 
and law enforcement will generally not pursue these identity theft cases . 
part of that peril is , in fact , contributed to by the federal government . 
by including social security numbers on medicare cards , the department of health and human services places millions of medicare beneficiaries at risk of becoming victims of identity theft . 
i have a simple amendment , mr. chairman . 
it prohibits the department of health and human services from including social security numbers on medicare cards . 
many commercial health insurance companies and states have already taken such steps . 
some states prohibit companies from displaying social security numbers internally and assign consumers unique numbers that would appear on medicare cards . 
it is time for the federal government to catch up and help protect an individual 's personal privacy . 
even the gao has published a number of reports and has concluded that there is no reason why the social security number can not be removed from the medicare card . 
mr. chairman , i reserve the balance of my time . 
