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It is true, a lot of tech companies will give you very good medical coverage without pay period fees but at the end of the day this boils down to money. Your sa

by nickjj 5y ago

It is true, a lot of tech companies will give you very good medical coverage without pay period fees but at the end of the day this boils down to money. Your salary is adjusted based on the company paying whatever rates they pay to offer you great insurance. When doing contract work, you might be paying $500 / month out of pocket for medical insurance but your hourly rate is likely higher than your hourly rate as a W-2 employee even after factoring in company holidays, PTO and 401k matching. You also have the option of not buying insurance if you really wanted to. Most insurance in the US is horrendous too. The whole system is optimized to provide you the least amount of coverage while making the process as inefficient as possible for you. I spent literally 12 hours on the phone over a few calls trying to get basic information from a few different dental insurance providers, in the end I got nothing concrete out of it and the only way I could have gotten concrete numbers is if I submit a form that takes 30 days to get processed except in the US you only have 30 days a year where you're allowed to enroll into insurance. Basically it was impossible for me to pick insurance based on coverage because it's impossible to know the coverage without first signing up and then you're stuck in it for a year in which case everything resets the next year and the process has to start again from scratch.

heleninboodler 5y ago
Here's how you pick dental insurance: it doesn't matter much because it isn't insurance at all. It's just a maintenance plan. The purpose of insurance is to buffer you against sudden large costs by having the insurance pay them while collecting enough of a premium from everyone that they come out ahead. The purpose of a dental plan is to pay for typical costs and completely bail on you if your costs go over a fixed amount per year (typically $1000-$3000). Look closely: every dental plan you are being offered likely has an annual maximum benefit per year of somewhere in this range ($1500 is common). I've had the insurance company cheerily say "yes, that procedure that costs $54000 is covered at 100%! ... up to your annual maximum, which is $1500. You will be responsible for the rest."
- antisthenes 5y ago
  The way you pick dental insurance in the USA: Pick the air carrier with the cheapest flight to Mexico.
- nickjj 5y ago
  Yeah it's very limited in general. You can't even get certain standard types of cleanings with 100% coverage because it's not a supported dental code. It would be way more efficient for employers not to offer dental insurance and instead give employees a tax-free $1,000 yearly stipend which allows employees to use this for personal and family dental care as an expense report which in turn ends up being a business write off for the employer. Now there's no limitations on what work can get done and no wasting your life trying to chase down dental / FSA details. A higher end dental insurance plan through a company is over $1,000 a year too, so this stipend approach would save employers money and it saves employees a lot of money too because you could easily end up paying $600-700 post-tax money out of pocket for standard cleanings a few times a year when insurance won't cover them (even if that insurance costs $1,000 a year). It's a win / win scenario for both the employer and employee.

by nickjj 5y ago

heleninboodler 5y ago

Here's how you pick dental insurance: it doesn't matter much because it isn't insurance at all. It's just a maintenance plan. The purpose of insurance is to buffer you against sudden large costs by having the insurance pay them while collecting enough of a premium from everyone that they come out ahead. The purpose of a dental plan is to pay for typical costs and completely bail on you if your costs go over a fixed amount per year (typically $1000-$3000). Look closely: every dental plan you are being offered likely has an annual maximum benefit per year of somewhere in this range ($1500 is common). I've had the insurance company cheerily say "yes, that procedure that costs $54000 is covered at 100%! ... up to your annual maximum, which is $1500. You will be responsible for the rest."

antisthenes 5y ago
The way you pick dental insurance in the USA: Pick the air carrier with the cheapest flight to Mexico.
nickjj 5y ago
Yeah it's very limited in general. You can't even get certain standard types of cleanings with 100% coverage because it's not a supported dental code. It would be way more efficient for employers not to offer dental insurance and instead give employees a tax-free $1,000 yearly stipend which allows employees to use this for personal and family dental care as an expense report which in turn ends up being a business write off for the employer. Now there's no limitations on what work can get done and no wasting your life trying to chase down dental / FSA details. A higher end dental insurance plan through a company is over $1,000 a year too, so this stipend approach would save employers money and it saves employees a lot of money too because you could easily end up paying $600-700 post-tax money out of pocket for standard cleanings a few times a year when insurance won't cover them (even if that insurance costs $1,000 a year). It's a win / win scenario for both the employer and employee.