Tour of Mountain View

[jbailey]

We took a tour of Mountain View with Leslie yesterday. It was nice to look around and see what was actually around here for shopping / things to do / how to escape to somewhere else. It looks like the biggest redeeming feature of MTV is that one can leave. It reminds me of Coquitlam. It's the last place we're considering outside of the city - but considering that we're not going to really be out partying in the next year, the crime rate is very low, and rent is sometimes half of what we'd pay, it's definetly worth considering. It also will keep the commute down to something reasonable (probably 15 minutes on a bike, almost too short).

Weird American thing of the day: Apparently for everything you need your SSN here. At home, the only people who are allowed to ask for the Canadian equivalent (SIN) are people who are going to pay you money. So a credit check can't require it. Your health card can't require it. Your driver's license can't require it. Angie not having one is going to get sticky in a few cases.

I actually walked just under 10,000 steps on Friday. I didn't bike because I wasn't feeling well, and it seems that the walk to the commuter train is somewhere between 2 and 3 thousand steps.

Comments

[shipitfish.livejournal.com]

Jeff, you don't actually have to give your SSN to anyone but a federal agency or someone who is going to give you money. However, many health insurance companies do ask for it. The problem is that while you are legally entitled to refuse to give it, they can also hold up or otherwise delay your application if you don't give it.

A similar example is something that many of us privacy advocates experienced in college regarding student loans. I refused to give the University my SSN (they aren't entitled to it) and they dutifully assigned me a separate number. However, the student loan office (which interfaces with the federal agency which does have a right to ask) got totally confused and was unable to properly handle my student loans because my SSN didn't match my University ID (and I was one of three privacy-focused students in that situation on the whole campus).

A lot of this comes down to state law, too. In Massachusetts, laws were very strictly applied to the insurance industry and there was a box on the forms there to say “assign me my own number, you can't have my SSN”. In New York, when I investigated this carefully, I found that there was no state-level push to protect you from insurance companies refusing to process an application without it. This was technically in violation of Privacy Act of 1974 from what I've read (I am not an expert), but it became clear one would have to file a law suit to get coverage without giving your SSN.

It's a very tricky thing, and I'm not surprised you haven't been able to find clear rules on this. The best I've been able to understand after years of following this issue is that it's federally illegal to require it, but attrition convinces people to give in because it's so hard to fight if the individual state (ala Massachusetts) isn't behind its citizens privacy. I really do think it'll take a law suit from someone who had identity theft due to a health insurance company screwing it up before we get anywhere.

One thing I'd recommend: even if they require you give your SSN on the form to apply, many of the health insurance companies will assign you a different number for use as your actual insurance ID. This is sort of a half way point: they want your SSN on file because their database is designed to require it, but they won't use it as your doctor-facing health insurance ID number. This can really help regarding the privacy and identity theft aspects, because at least only one entity (the health insurance company itself) has access to the SSN, while the doctors' offices, hospitals, etc. get a wholly different number.

As a side note: I just learned last week that in NY state, lawyers have to use the last four digits of their SSN publicly in court as their attorney bar member ID number. And, for those that don't know, the last four digits are the only non-discernible part of the SSN (the first five can be determined by where and when you were born).

Jeff, if you want to discuss this issue more, I'd be happy to talk to you more about it offline. This has kinda been a pet issue of mine for many years and I've read a lot about it.