Beware the Millennium Bug

You can’t blame President Clinton these days for getting a bit excited about a good-news press conference. But when the president assured senior citizens Monday that their Social Security checks will be on time in 2000, his “rest easy” message went too far.

Of course, it’s great to hear that the Social Security Administration’s computer systems will cough up checks on schedule during the rollover from 1999 to 2000. But what about other government payments that affect the elderly? There remains, remember, that potential glitch dubbed Y2K, for Year 2000.

The massive Health and Human Services Department, for example, has tested less than half of its critical systems. It’s charged with delivering Medicare, Medicaid and welfare payments through the states, which have millennial computer problems of their own. The Y2K problem derives from the continued use of old computer codes that list years with two digits instead of four. It means that computers might interpret “00” as 1900, not 2000.

The federal government has issued warnings to seven states that lag behind in year 2000 conversions. Montana, Delaware and New Hampshire have already admitted that they won’t make it in time to avoid problems. As for federal agencies, only the Small Business Administration, in addition to Social Security, has gotten the job done. Their expertise ought to be put to work for federal agencies in danger of missing the deadline, including the IRS and the Labor Department. Otherwise this millennial event may become a high-tech nightmare.