At 2:15 PM -0700 10/29/97, Neva Remailer wrote:
The Emergency Room Scenario is a little more challenging. One way to deal with it is to wear some obvious signs of wealth like a $10,000 watch. In a pinch you can give them the watch. ;-) (Some of the nurses won't know what it is, but the doctors will, I am sure.)
I'm pretty sure that if you are an unconscious wealthy looking person they don't turn you away. You really only need to survive until your lawyer gets to the hospital with a suitcase of cash.
Read "The Millionaire Next Door" for tips on what millionaires (who are of course the "barely non-poor" these days) are likely to be wearing and flaunting. Turns out that most Yuppies driving BMWs and wearning Rolexes are doing so on _credit_. Driving a Mercedes or BMW has nothing to do with actual ability to pay bills.
How do super rich people solve this problem? You can be pretty sure that Bill Gates self insures and protects his privacy at the same time. How does he do it? How does he solve the Emergency Room Scenario?
I can't speak for what Gates does, but the 3rd or 4th richest man, Gordon Moore of Intel, was signed up for the company plan. As a fail-safe, emergency room plan, it's a winner. If grossly more expensive treatments are needed, more than the health care plan will pay for, he can always opt for this. (The "savings" by self-insuring are trivial, even to average folks. Given that a company health plan will not _stop_ patients from paying more, the company plan is valuable insurance against being turned away as an indigent.) --Tim May The Feds have shown their hand: they want a ban on domestic cryptography ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, ComSec 3DES: 408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, Higher Power: 2^2,976,221 | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."