X-Message-Number: 1228 From: Subject: grist . . . . Date: Wed, 23 Sep 92 20:59:42 PDT Charles Platt <> writes: >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. This is not an objective. Like any business we can afford an occasional loss. The objective is to make the losses reasonably rare events. > 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. Given any warning, we can ship the remote standby kit--and without warning, it is not very likely to be helpful anyway. So while it would be a good idea to have kits in the field, we can get by. The training for washouts is not that advanced beyond the regular suspension training, and it has already been under consideration for some time. Brian Wowk writes: >Keith Henson: >> I would like to see people concentrate on cost reduction as >> opposed to revenue increases. Cryonics has never had a real push >> to reduce suspension cost (as opposed to storage cost) so we >> should get a lot of return here for relatively little effort. > To say "cryonics has never had a real push (etc.)" isn't >really fair to the Cryonics Institute (CI). The main reason >their rates are much lower than Alcor's is that their suspension >costs (not storage costs) are much lower than Alcor's. Of >course, the quality of suspension is also much lower than most >Alcor members would consider acceptable. Sorry Brian, I was not thinking of CI. On the other hand, they never pushed to lower the cost either, they just never went for high-tech (and cost) suspensions. What I am working on is to lower the cost while having minimum impact on the quality. [deleted] > Also it seems to me that costs of transport, perfusion, >and cooldown are not the issues here. If I understand what Keith >has been saying, the biggest uncompensated expense associated >with terminal sign-ups is the standby phase. If so, the adoption >of sensible policies for remote standby will solve all these >problems. Indeed, do we really have a terminal sign-up problem, >or a remote standby problem? Transport can be rather variable depending on distance from Alcor, but it is not as much of a problem as remote standby. And (in this last case at least) the two problems were very tangled. The fact that the patient signed up *very* terminal and his family was not able to deal with cryonics very well greatly complicated the standby and increased its cost. Thomas Donaldson <> asked about insurance issues. I believe that the test for being in the insurance business is that you charge an amount which depends in some way on the perceived risk. "Steven B. Harris" <> writes: [much good material deleted which will take more consideration than I have time to give it right now.] >There may come a time, however, when less training is >needed and we'll be faced once and for all with this, and no >excuses. The issue of local people vs. Alcor central people for >standby is a good one, and is definitely something to think in >terms of charging an extra fee based on geography and local >member availability to new sign-ups who want standby. The problem >is in figuring out who's going to volunteer locally before they >actually *do* it, and that's what you have to do to figure out >what to charge people BEFORE their suspensions, for the stuff >that happens AFTER. It's a nasty problem. I certainly agree >that we get by to some extent on charity now (in terms of member >donated time for suspensions), and I think that will always >continue so long as cryonics is practiced on the "local baptist >church" model. By this I mean lots of local autonomy, and Alcor >central as more co-ordinator than omnipotent resource. This is >yet one more reason for Alcor central to give more of its member >dues back to local chapters for use in buying equipment, etc. At present we give none of the dues back to the chapters, though we do provide volunteer transport teams with equipment, training, drugs and central support. It is noteworthy that the best equipped/trained/experienced group (northern California) has not expressed *any* desire for a rebate, or even a more formal relation with Alcor. This group may become the first with local washout capacity -- though in our case, we are just barely inside of the range of the ambulance/MALSS cart if we have reasonable warning. (Situations with little or no warning are very likely to be coroner's cases, where field washout is unlikely.) A few months ago I was opposed to giving local groups a lot of autonomy in dealing with complex medical equipment, training, and drug issues. These problems are tough enough for Alcor central. But after all the complaints we have been from certain people, and getting our nose rubbed in the remote standby/transport cost problem on the east coast, I am ready to propose offering a lot more standby/transport and even suspension responsibility to chapters. We are not going to do this right away because there are a flock of problems. First is the remote member who signed up expecting *Alcor* to be there, not some locally supported volunteer. If an Alcor contract holder is providing enough standby funding to avoid this situation does the local group get a cut of their ERFs? How big a fraction of the ERF does a local group need? (Actually I know the answer to that one, about 250-500%. :-( ) And Steve put his finger directly on the problem of being sure that the remote group which is getting a check every month from Alcor can actually respond when they are needed. I guess we are going to have to make it *very* clear that you have to pay for the level of service you get. If you don't want to provide substantial standby funding, you are going to have to make do with whatever locals can be rounded up. Keith Henson Alcor board member but speaking for himself Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=1228