Military Officer - November 2007 - (Page 40)

washingtonscene thinks they’re serious. One big challenge is that reversing the payment cuts carries a price tag of $20 billion over 10 years. Everyone in Congress wants to make the ﬁx, but ﬁnding the money is another issue. Unfortunately, the decision to drop it from the children’s health bill probably means this crucial action will be put off until the very end of the year — again. At that point, we expect it will be rolled into some kind of “must pass” omnibus legislation, so leadership can threaten that legislators won’t get home for Christmas unless they agree on the funding and pass it. SSAN, with the full SSAN electronically encrypted on the card. This would provide additional protection to the individual servicemember while still preserving data deemed essential for hundreds of purposes, from validating commissary check purchases to conﬁrming the identities of POWs. The reason for the multi-year phaseout is to allow time to convert the large numbers of hardware and software systems to conform to the new card and also to allow a phased, voluntary replacement of ID cards for current members, retirees, family members, and survivors so ID card facilities aren’t overwhelmed. MOAA recognizes that making changes on such fundamental data elements is never easy or quick. We commend the Armed Services committees for pressing the issue and Defense leaders for acknowledging the problem and initiating a plan to address it. Deep-Six the SSAN ID cards to phase out Social Security numbers. L ast year, MOAA urged the House and Senate Armed Services committees to explore options to protect servicemembers from identity theft by removing Social Security account numbers (SSANs) from military ID cards. The fallout was a provision in the FY 2007 Defense Authorization Act that tasked the Pentagon for a report and recommendations on how to address this pressing issue. The Pentagon report, forwarded to Congress in July by Undersecretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness David Chu, cited the difﬁculties of moving entirely away from use of the SSAN, which is fundamental to all of the services’ personnel records and innumerable embedded networks of security and record-keeping systems. However, it acknowledged the current system poses problems that need to be addressed and said DoD intends to phase out the use of the printed SSAN on ID cards in the next several years. The plan is to move to an ID card that would print only the last four digits of the MOAA Staff Transition Campos shifts to wounded warrior issues. M OAA is extremely pleased to announce Cmdr. René Campos, USN-Ret., previously deputy director for military family issues, has assumed duties as deputy director for health care issues, with primary responsibility for wounded warrior and VA care initiatives. René worked with wounded warrior programs in her last four years on active duty in the Ofﬁce of the Secretary of Defense and has been a key advisor in this area since coming to MOAA in 2004. MO — Contributors are Col. Steve Strobridge, USAF-Ret., director; Col. Mike Hayden, USAFRet.; Col. Bob Norton, USA-Ret.; Cmdr. René Campos, USN-Ret.; Cmdr. John Class, USN-Ret.; Col. Phil Odom, USAF-Ret.; Cass Vreeland; and Bret Shea, MOAA’s Government Relations Department. 40 MILITARY OFFICER NOVEMBER 2007

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Military Officer - November 2007

Military Officer - November 2007 Contents From the Editor President’s Page Your Views MOAA Directory Rapid Fire Washington Scene Chapters in Action Financial Forum Ask the Doctor Cover Story: Commanding the Corps With Love, From Home Financial Guidebook Financial Tuneups Banking on Your Time Pages of History MOAA Scholarship Recipients Faces of MOAA MOAA Scholarship Donors Member Books Advertising Index MOAA Calendar Sounding Taps MOAA Member Services Encore

Military Officer - November 2007

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