X-Message-Number: 1214 Date: 21 Sep 92 21:55:15 EDT From: Charles Platt <> Subject: CRYONICS Re the Alcor fee structure: This discussion is becoming muddy, because there are two problems involved, but they are not being discussed separately. FIRST PROBLEM: How to discourage last-minute sign-ups by terminal patients, which will exceed Alcor's logistical abilities if they become too common. SECOND PROBLEM: How to pay for remote stand-by, which can sometimes be ruinously expensive. Here's my suggestion for coping with the first problem: When a member signs up, (s)he pays Alcor a substantial "security deposit"--something like $10,000. At the end of the first year of membership, if the member is still alive, Alcor gives the money back. Here's my suggestion for coping with the second problem: simply increase the cost of neuro and whole-body suspension by, say, $5,000. Since this is paid by life insurance in most cases, it would not impose an onerous burden on members. The annual cost increase would be trivial. True, some people will end up effectively subsidizing the suspension costs of others, because some people will go down quickly and others will require a longer standby. But this is already the situation, and I see no way around it. The advantage shared by these two proposals is that they are simple. As soon as we start messing around with sliding scales of membership dues and other ingenious notions, the Alcor fee structure starts looking like the U.S. tax code. And once you start amending it, it will never seem quite fair, so there are bound to be amendments to the amendments, and the people at Riverside will waste too much time trying to administer it. The disadvantage shared by my proposals is that they cost people money. But really, this is inevitable. After all, the objective is to make up for a loss that Alcor has experienced in recent suspensions. I appreciate Keith's point of view about cutting costs rather than raising revenues, but cost- cutting along the lines that he suggests will take a while, as equipment is set up in the various chapters and people are trained. In the meantime, the money has to come from the members, one way or another. Rather than trying to sugar-coat the pill in various ways, why not be blunt and simple? --Charles Platt Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=1214