At 11:45 2003-06-18 -0500, Jamie Lawrence wrote:
Anonymity (strong or not) is vastly important to secrecy.
Medical data is a great example of this. It may be private, for some (weak) values of private, right now. Being John Doe at the doctor's office and paying cash, though, is vastly better in terms of assurance, at least until the doctor's business-cam interfaces with other databases. Too bad that works so poorly with insurance, but then worker insurance in the US is nearly a government program, anyway.
There may be a viable opportunity for an off-shore private medical insurance carrier which does not use your social security number as your identifier to the medical service provider. Due to excessive U.S. fed and state insurance regulations many/most doctors might refuse to accept it (at least initially) it may be necessary for this insurance to operate "off network" so that subscribers would have to pay the care giver and be reimbursed. steve