I have no idea how dental insurance companies make any money, why would you ever sign up if you didn’t know they were going to pay out more than you put in?
I come across so many personal-finance bloggers who think dental/prescription insurance is just obviously a basic necessity, and then you look at the plan they’re on and the payout caps are so low that it’s damn near physically impossible to get out more than you put in no matter *how* bad your health luck is.
They make money because of people like me, who have dental insurance, but never have enough free cash lying around to get my teeth worked on even though I have dental insurance, because what they pay for is pretty limited.
I have to keep it, because any month I might have enough money to afford dental work, and if you give it up, you don’t get it back for the rest of the year. But while it covers a significant fraction of any dental work I do get done, it doesn’t cover enough for me to get that work done, most months.
ideally if you’re paying in more than they’re paying out, you could cancel and self insure and come out with a slight edge
I do get tho that in economically precarious positions people often have somewhat elastic expenses that preclude that kind of thing. been there
(also depending on what procedures are necessary waiting periods might make this more of a calculated gamble than pure bad EV)
@profound-yet-trivial actual catastrophic insurance (for adults) is rare, most of what is called dental insurance has very low payout caps ($1000-2000 on something like $240-700 of premiums) which makes it +EV for me only if I’m likely to be buying a lot of dentistry
my other theory is that dental pricing is opaque enough that insurance is making its money thru some kind of obscure mechanism internal to the industry.
like, I want to buy some dentistry. I did a few hours of research and purchased an insurance plan which is, I believe, going to pay out more than I am paying in premiums. I am reasonably confident I am going to come out ahead having this plan, but I am not confident at all and would likely bet that I have not selected the maximally efficient strategy.
I estimate that confidently determining such a strategy would probably take me ~20 hours. getting this right could save me a lot of money! but maybe not that much money?
so yeah if anyone is familiar with the economics of dentistry in seattle I am willing to pay you for advice! hmu with your cost estimate. alternately I guess I could download tinder and try to match with dentists or something lol
Tags:
#conversational aglets #adventures in human capitalism #medical cw
I have cleverly arranged my schedule so that I can participate in both canadian and american thanksgiving. I have no idea what canadians do for canadian thanksgiving but I ate a lot. wikipedia claims:
While the actual Thanksgiving holiday is on a Monday, Canadians may gather for their Thanksgiving feast on any day during the long weekend; however, Sunday is considered the most common.
which is, frankly, a lot more sane than having specifically thursday off for dinner. no I am not suggesting any amendment to the american practice
#frankly I like eating so I might adopt canadian thanksgiving to me extended schedule of holidays #dont currently have anything between labor day and thanksgiving unless we count 9/11 but that’s still a month ago #fills a good hole
The Objectively Correct solution to Columbus Day discourse.
hmm apparently google calendar a) doesn’t recognize Casimir Pulaski day and b) will not let you add a repeating event in the form of “nth day of the week of [month]”. going to need better software
til there is a federal “general pulaski day” on october 11th which google also does not recognize. federal german-american day is october 6th. but going by holidays people actually celebrate it seems preferable to leave mr pulaski in march and double thanksgiving. every day can be a holiday if you try hard and believe in yourself. this is my goal
There was a children’s magazine I was once subscribed to for a while as a kid (something run by Disney, I think) where each issue came with a calendar, and every day on that calendar was marked with one or another National Insert-Thing-Here Day or World Something Day (often two or three of them).
Sure, many of them are arbitrary marketing efforts, but hey, if you think something’s neat, why *not* observe–*throws dart*–Butterfly Day on–*googles*–okay apparently there are several Butterfly Days, one of which overlaps with Pi Day. BRB, making a pie crust with butterfly shapes on it.
In the last 3 years I got tinnitus, feeling like I’m suffocating, and joint pain added to my moment-to-moment suffering. That’s 1 constant burden added per year. Let alone the several other minor things breaking during that time that I notice daily but not constantly.
At this rate I’ll have about 50 problems as bad as tinnitus weighing on me at any given moment by the end of my expected life span. Actually, rumor has it that new problems accelerate as you get older rather than showing up at a constant rate, so if the last 3 years aren’t a fluke, 50 could be too optimistic.
But that can’t possibly be true, right? Yeah, aging is bad, but if it were that bad people would get almost-universally institutionalized indefinitely in their 40s as the constant torture accumulates, probably, and that clearly isn’t the case. It’s gotta be better than what my gut instinct suggests the future will be like, right?
Right?
I used to wonder about this myself (right down to the annual frequency), and from my experience thus far it seems like at least part of the answer is: not all long-lasting problems are permanent. They sometimes mysteriously *disappear* just as they mysteriously appeared.
I’m not prone to earwax clogs anymore (as I was for roughly a decade). I don’t get waves of stomach pain every night around 12:50 AM anymore (several years). I usually don’t have an itching response to my own sweat anymore (~two years). I tried stopping my use of dandruff shampoo recently to see if the dandruff would come back, and so far it *hasn’t*.
(This isn’t even counting the late-onset dysmenorrhea, the chronic constipation, or the once-frequent rashes on the backs of my hands, for all of which the underlying tendency is still there but very well-controlled.)
I’m not *planning around* the possibility that, say, my ability to breathe unfiltered outdoor non-winter air will someday return, but I acknowledge that it might and I’ll gladly accept the bonus to my expected quality-of-life if it does.
i am in my thirties and have somehow spent my entire life under the impression that the only difference between hard and soft water was that they taste and feel different. and which one you preferred was based entirely on what you were used to. now i find out that hard water is why my clothes get so fucked up so fast. people without hard water don’t agonize over how many times they can wash a soft blanket before it stops being soft. all those years of reading online discussions about how showering should only take five minutes and every other day you should just rinse your hair out with water. my intense confusion because if i try to take a five minute shower i come out looking and feeling dirtier than when i went in. if my hair gets wet in the shower and i don’t shampoo it i come out looking like i fell in the creek. if i gave myself a quick soapy rinse before work and then ran out the door without extensively moisturizing i would be the itchiest bitch alive in five minutes. i just assumed it was a body chemistry thing. now you’re telling me that other people don’t have that. that i am in Special Circumstances because every time i step in the tub i am effectively taking a mineral bath.
don’t get me fucking started on hard water and yes i am writing this right in the post i am so sorry op but where i live we have hard water (there’s a higher Very Hard level) so i would like to rant with you about how showering makes your skin so itchy and how you live and breath dandruff because your scalp is crying and how soap won’t rub off your hands no matter how hard you scrub and how drying yourself with a towel just leaves you clammy and how you have to wipe every surface down to combat the accumulation of limescale even though it doesn’t help so everything is spotted white and how your plants can just start dying because of the shitty shitty water and how you can technically drink tap water but it tastes terrible so you have to go on pilgrimages to mountain towns to get water from their fountains and how, since we’re ranting about shampoo, you think your hair is Irrevocably and Horribly damaged until you go to a city with soft water and wash it there one (1) time and your hair comes out silky and shiny and like a goddamned commercial yes i am still pissed knowing what my hair could be like if only i weren’t washing it with liquidized minerals
I hope I’m not barging in too hard, but I saw this in the notes and I thought I should tell y’all in case nobody has yet:
It’s possible to plumb a water-softening device into your home pipes. I have one, as do most homes in my area.
I’m *guessing* that for y’all there aren’t big displays of softener salt readily available in every grocery store and most convenience stores, otherwise you’d have found out sooner (although it’s also possible you *do* have displays and didn’t notice because you didn’t realise they were relevant to your interests, I could definitely see myself doing that), but some models run off of resin beads instead and only need the resin replaced every few years (possibly at the cost of worse taste than salt-based systems, but I’m not sure about that part).
I was doing some googling on prices recently because mine is getting old and decrepit, and it looks like it’s on the order of a few thousand if you don’t already have your pipes set up for it, or a few hundred to slot in a unit on piping already designed around it. I’m aware that a few grand is a lot of money and that many people don’t have the authority to make those kinds of changes to their homes, but it’s still good to know that it’s *possible* to have soft water without having to move to a naturally-soft area.
#conversational aglets #(I mean technically mine is also retrofitted given that I’m pretty sure my house predates the local water grid) #(but fortunately somebody *else* dealt with that) #PSA #domesticity #the more you know
I’ve been wearing my respirator for a while now and I put on a normal trifold mask because I need to do a lot of talking and I forgot how hard it is to get a seal on these things. I keep on adjusting it because I breathe and get a jet of air in my eye.
right? that’s the worst part imo
Have you tried putting a strip of medical tape (or a band-aid) over the top edge?
It’s still more annoying to seal than an elastomeric, but a lot less annoying than trying to seal a mask *without* tape.
andmaybegayer replied: “@brin-bellway haven’t tried that, I’ll have to keep a roll in my bag of masks”
Tags:
#conversational aglets #illness tw #the more you know #recs
unfortunately there is no tininess of amount that will make my fingertips not feel goopy. if somebody else wanted to rub the moisturizer into the tops of my hands it wouldn’t matter because I wouldn’t have to touch my keys with it
I am extremely weird about hand cleanliness with my stuff and basically only my stuff. I don’t care much normally but if you are using my keyboard, controller, or guitar, you gotta wash them grubby little mitts
I can rub it into the backs of my palms without using my fingertips, by rubbing them together, but I can’t really get the backs and sides of my fingers well done, which is historically a problem area
I technically can use the computer with gloves on, and I have done it in cold weather, but I feel so much less competent at typing and mousing that I really avoid it when possible
I do moisturize before going to sleep and wear gloves over it, but since I prefer to do so after I finish reading on my phone, and I’m often very sleepy by that point, it’s less than maximally reliable
the best solution to this problem is to adequately humidify my environment such that I don’t need to moisturize at all, but until I get the right quantity and quality of humidifiers sorted moisturize I must, and deal with some level of goopiness I must also
the best time slot for moisturization I’ve found for me personally is before going for a walk, as I usually wear gloves anyway and don’t use my hands much
>>unfortunately there is no tininess of amount that will make my fingertips not feel goopy
I do hear some brands absorb a lot slower than others, so it’s possible switching brands would help. I’m currently experimenting with Live Clean’s “intense moisture” lotion and finding it decent. (A bit of poking at Amazon suggests that Live Clean *exists* in America but might be harder to find there?)
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>>I technically can use the computer with gloves on, and I have done it in cold weather, but I feel so much less competent at typing and mousing that I really avoid it when possible
Same, TBH. Apparently it works well for some people, though, and sometimes I’m desperate enough to do it myself.
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>>the best solution to this problem is to adequately humidify my environment such that I don’t need to moisturize at all
I run a humidifier in my bedroom overnight, and if I’m not working food service I generally find that moisturising once a day is enough (with larger quantities in winter). But I *am* working food service, so I need to break out the big guns in order to get anywhere near keeping up.
I’m not sure where it falls on the absorption-speed spectrum, but in terms of *effectiveness* the best lotion I’ve yet encountered is Beekman’s honey and orange blossom: the only one that’s ever allowed me to actually *keep up* with food-service levels of handwashing instead of just partially mitigating the damage. Horrendously expensive, though, which is why I’m still experimenting with other brands. (Probably less horrendous in America, with domestic shipping costs.)
yeah some brands are better than others. even very good ones by this metric are imperfect, tho, and tbh I don’t want to spend that much money on goo
if I am only washing my hands for textural reasons I can use water without soap which is much less damaging to the skin, so theoretically with good enough humidification I don’t need any moisturizer. I have achieved this level in new york, it remains to be seen if it’s possible in colder & dryer places.
Brinens and Things 