SSN on Medicare Cards

The LATimes had an article a couple days ago pointing out that while states and counties were removing Social security numbers from drivers licenses and similar documents, Medicare (and DOD) still uses it as the identifier on their cards:

"Spokesman Peter Ashkenaz said that Medicare officials were aware of the concerns involving use of the numbers and that alternatives had been discussed. But so far, he said, there were no plans to issue cards with different numbers, which would probably cost $100 million and require retooling the agency's computer systems.
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IMHO, the number on the card serves these purposes in the medicare computer system:

• show to the clerk that the person already has a record in the system, as opposed to enrolling the person for the first time.
  
• provide a quick, fast way to access the record--typing in 9 digits is probably a bit faster than typing in "Harshaw", "William", and then deciding that the one living in Reston, not nearby Oakton, is the correct one. Of course, "bharshaw [at] hotmial.com" is quick and sure.
  

What's unfortunate is that neither the Medicare bureaucrat nor the LATimes writer is aware of the work being done on IDs in government. It's another example of the "silo" complex.