At 3:47 AM +0000 6/11/01, Dr. Evil wrote:
I need to sign up for health insurance tomorrow. I'm going to buy individual coverage from Kaiser. On their form, it asks for an SSN, of course.
Well, Kaiser is not a government agency, and is certainly not associated with the Social Security Adminisrtation in any way, so they have no legitimate need for my SSN, and I don't want to give it to them.
Then don't give it to them. You can refuse to supply the number, they can refuse to sell you a policy, and you can both walk away.
I'm wondering how best to go about doing this:
1. I could make up an SSN and give it to them. I basically just have to make sure it's one that hasn't been taken, and corresponds to my real birth county, right?
This would be contract fraud. When they ultimately detect it, they will have grounds for extreme actions.
2. I could say that I don't have an SSN. Most people in the world don't have SSNs. Would they then require proof that I'm not a US citizen? Or will they just assign me some kind of policy number? That would be ideal.
Those who are not U.S. citizens but who work in the U.S. are still required to have taxpayer identification numbers. If you claim you are a tourist just visiting the U.S. with no intention of working or investing, they may assign you a number IF they decide to take your business. If they determine you lied to them, see above about the extreme actions.
3. I could refuse to give it to them, but I think they would probably then refuse to give me coverage.
Indeed, their selling you a policy is not required.
Any thoughts? I have absolutely no health problems that I'm aware of, and I'm not trying to hide any pre-existing condition, and my only medical records are things which say, "he's healthy", so I'm not trying to commit any kind of fraud here, I just want my privacy.
Then deal with an insurance company which doesn't require SSNs. If you cannot find one, too bad. --Tim May -- Timothy C. May tcmay@got.net Corralitos, California Political: Co-founder Cypherpunks/crypto anarchy/Cyphernomicon Technical: physics/soft errors/Smalltalk/Squeak/agents/games/Go Personal: b.1951/UCSB/Intel '74-'86/retired/investor/motorcycles/guns