• 8 Posts
  • 34 Comments
Joined 6 months ago
Cake day: March 21st, 2024
  • HottieAutie@lemmy.dbzer0.comOPtoNo Stupid Questions@lemmy.world•Why doesn't the American market provide efficient and effective health insurance like it does for car insurance?
    21·
    25 days ago

    Assuming that demand for car insurance is artificially inflated because people are mandated to purchase it, wouldn’t an open market still drive down prices due to competition? Another market that has even more demand is food. People aren’t even legally mandated to buy food. They either buy it or die. There may be a few people that can grow enough of their own food to sustain themselves without ever purchasing it, but I would guess that there are more people that make enough money to live without insurance than people that grow all of their own food. Despite that, food seems to be relatively affordable. If one food vendor is charging too much or I don’t like their product, I can easily go to a competing food vendor and purchase there. Adam’s invisible hand then ensures that the market provides an efficient quality-to-price ratio. I’m not arguing it’s perfect, but we don’t hear about how food stores are ripping us off as much as we do about insurance companies. My argument is that despite there being inflated demand, the insurance companies still have to compete with each other for those customers, which would have a considerable impact on price. Let’s say we all buy cars that are valued at $20k. If one company is providing insurance for $100/month and the other company is charging $150/month, everything else being equal, the former would earn more customers.

    Also, since demand is high, I think it would LOWER rates. Here’s why. If insurance was not mandated, then the people that would get it would include everyone that thinks they may need it. The ones that think they will not use it will avoid wasting their money since they’re not receiving anything in return. That means that there will be less contributions and more expenditures from the pooled money, making insurance more expensive. Mandate insurance makes it so that even the people that will not use it contribute to the pool, so everyone’s costs are lower than otherwise. Of course, this would only happen in a market that allows for competition. Otherwise, if there were only one insurance provider, they would be in a position to price gouge everyone since the only other option would be to break the law.

  • HottieAutie@lemmy.dbzer0.comtoAsklemmy@lemmy.ml•What life hack is so simple yet so effective, you're shocked more people don't know about it?
    253·
    2 months ago

    When working on long-term goals:

    1. Set a date for completion.
    2. Create a tentative schedule working backwards from that date. Include dates for completing main tasks.
    3. Give extra time in the schedule for minor setbacks between tasks.
    4. Give extra time in the schedule for a potential major setback overall.

    For example, let’s say the goal is to paint a house:

    1. I can say I want it painted in 2 months, so I set it for the date of 9/17/24.

    2. I figure I can paint a room every other day, so since the house has 5 rooms total, I think I can start painting 10 days before on 9/07/24. However, I need to consider that finding and purchasing paint and equipment will take time too. I think about it and consider that paint shopping can take me 2 days since I want to try out several stores, so the newer date is 9/05/24.

    3. Now, I add some room for minor setbacks between each task. Rather than assuming I will paint every other day, I add two days in between. That means starting on 8/30/24. This allows me to take my time with rooms, skip a day if I feel tired, or adjust if I the rooms take longer to paint than I had anticipated for whatever reason. I also increase the time allotted for acquiring materials because so many things can happen: traffic, tired, unhappy with selection, need time to test samples and ask people, etc. Rather than only include 2 days for this, I include a whole week so I can see the paint samples on the walls and see which ones feel the best. We are not starting on 8/23/24.

    4. Lastly, maybe something major could happen, such as getting sick, the store runs out of paint stock, my car breaks down, or I change my mind on one of the paint colors after seeing it up on the wall. I might even realize that I completely overlooked tasks, such as rearranging furniture, painting over errors/accidents, and clean up. I would then add a cushion of 2 weeks to the schedule to allow for that should it happen. So the actual start date is 8/9/24. This is much sooner than if we had gone with the original start date of 9/07/24, almost an entire month!

    With this style of planning, I can take my sweet time, enjoy the process, and not get stressed out if something unexpected comes up. If I finish early, then I have extra time to work on details or enjoy the rest.

  • HottieAutie@lemmy.dbzer0.comtoAsklemmy@lemmy.ml•How to send a fax from an Android phone
    2·
    4 months ago

    First Union, which was bought by Wachovia, which was bought by Wells Fargo was my first bank account. Sometime around 2009, it came out that they were doing some pretty shady shit along with going out of their way to fuck their customers out of money by posting their purchases in a way that would maximize fees. It was a blatant dickhead move. I immediately closed my account with them and will never go back.