Google Co-Founder Larry Page Allowed into New Zealand Despite Closed Border

Empathy and benefit of the doubt for billionaires who vacation in Fiji and whose kids get a medevac flight to a major city when something goes wrong would look a bit more sane if those were commonly afforded to normal people as well. Which they aren't.

>“The day after the application was received, a New Zealand air ambulance staffed by a New Zealand ICU nurse-escort medevaced the child and an adult family member from Fiji to New Zealand,”

https://apnews.com/article/technology-lifestyle-travel-new-z...

Reminder, Sydney is merely 1 hour extra flight time away and borders were wide open in January.

In Canada we are allowed to quarantine in our own homes, and the government checks up on you and fines you for leaving within 14 days afaik.

I hope you get home to your family soon.

Rich enough? You can go home. Poor? Yeah, sucks to be you.

But they’re not. They’re hiding from a pandemic in Fiji and buying their way into quarantined nations that aren’t even letting their own citizens in.

Let me know the next time Page or Schmidt has to worry whether they’ll ever be destitute due to an injury or accident out of their control.

My own anxieties have largely to do with my children, and while some can probably be bought away (is my kid getting an OK education at this public school?), there isn't an amount of money to instantly solve "my kid is sick".

I agree on the whole with the sentiment that the situations of the super rich are not comparable to ours, but there are some things that money won't solve, and likely some problems that you and I cannot conceive of that money creates.

Other people who have come upon sudden riches have expressed the same sentiment. There was a great post on reddit years ago from a guy in wealth management who talked about the severe lack of "human experience" when you achieve maximum wealth.

You're just presenting the other side of "arguably". Thanks, but unnecessary.

May I know what the significance of January 2020 is? Isn't that before Australia closed their borders?

Had a colleague whose wife worked at a Swedish hospital and she had patients from all over the world, not because the Swedish health system or even that hospital was particularly fantastic, but because she was one of the top people in the world in this one very niche thing.

Now, out of all developed countries, why did you mention Japan? IIRC, Japan produces little medical research compared to the UK or even Germany.

I only doubt you a little, but in order to make this discussion as truthful as possible, you mind adding some sources to your strong claims?

I am now in Israel, where I had much better outcomes than when I was in the US (with excellent insurance). Anecdotal, but I know many stories of Israelis who moved back to Israel with first diagnosis of a serious disease despite a good insurance - mostly because they were aware of horror stories of people losing their insurance at some point and going bankrupt (COBRA is damn expensive, and only lasts 18 month at its longest).

Granted, their experience predates Obamacare - it might be different now.

I don't how you post that so comfortably and without qualification.

An amazingly high portion of Canadians don't have a family doctor (<https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/despite-more-doctors-many-cana...>). In Atlantic Canada the shortage is astounding (<https://www.thetelegram.com/in-depth/doctor-shortage/what-we...>). It's one thing to have shortages in rural areas—that also happens in the US—but Halifax?!? I've heard the same occurs in Vancouver too.

>But the best hospitals and the best healthcare in the world is in the US ... if you can afford it.

91% of Americans have health insurance, compared to 95-97% for Canada and every other developed country. There are always people who fall into cracks, such as the Canadian who neglects to sign up for a new provincial health care card after moving. The only way to have true 100% coverage is to do what the UK does and not require any card or ID at point of delivery.

>Most of our multi-millionaires and billionaires go to the US for anything critical.

Politicians too, such as Jean Chretien, who twice visited the Mayo Clinic while Prime Minister, disguising the visits as "ski vacations" (<https://web.archive.org/web/20160624132234/http://www.ezrale...>).