<p>I would not be surprised if individual dental insurance plans cost as much as or more than just self-paying your dental care. Given that dental costs can be predicted and managed on an individual basis, it would not be surprising if individual dental insurance faces a strong adverse selection problem (people wanting to buy it just after their dentist tells them that they need something expensive done in the near future).</p>
<p>Employer-provided plans wash out the adverse selection problem, and appear to cost employers about as much as two checkups/cleanings per year plus some extra to cover an expected average amount of additional dental work.</p>
<p>Strange… my fillings are fine after 25+ years.</p>
<p>One small one did fall out, but the tooth remineralized itself on its own (verified by dentist probing where it was and noting that it was hard).</p>
<p>Once I hit my 50’s I started to have root canals for my molars. When I was a kid, fluoridation was just beginning and I had a number of fillings on my molars. Over the years, they loosen, and cavities form underneath.</p>
<p>I pay about four a pay period for my dental plan so about 100 a year. My employer pays like ten a pay period I think. That’s about thirty a month. Once you get older and are retired and you buy it on your own and you’re lumped in with people who are using it for big things, you would pay between thirty and seventy a month per person depending where you live and the plan. That would be for a ppo. Hmos would be cheaper and some people just get a discount card type thing. </p>
<p>UCB, you hit the nail on the head. I can’t tell you how many people suddenly want to buy dental insurance when they suddenly need a root canal or dentures.</p>
<p>Dentures are less problematic in terms of infections and problems, however. Root canals, implants, all of those things are risky because you have foreign matter inside your tissues. I can tell you for procedures like bone marrow transplants and the such, it is a concern. Also a few people we’ve known or known of have died from heart attacks that came after dental procedures. I would recommend ANY and EVERYone to get an antibiotic when having invasive dental work. The folks I know about had no history of heart trouble.</p>
<p>I fully know every disadvantage of dentures as my MIL and mother bitterly complain about theirs and they do not have full ones. </p>
<p>My brother underwent a huge amount of dental work a few years ago to finally get his teeth back into shape after neglect when some loose fillings and pain forced him into the dentist’s office. He spent the entire year going to various dental specialists as he did NOT want dentures and was able to save his teeth albeit at huge cost. He was under the mistaken idea that having a root canal and crown ended any issues with a tooth. Nope. You can get infections again and then it means going through the crown, filling the crown. You gotta go for regular check ups because without the nerves in those teeth, you won’t get the pain signal when you otherwise would and you could lose the tooth, root canal, crown and all after sinking a fortune into it. Then you either have a gap, have to get a bridge type thing or start looking into implants. Serious money there. </p>
<p>My fillings are over 40 years old and they probably all need to be replaced. I didn’t have a cavity my entire adult life and now the problems are starting up as the fillings start to erode allowing bacteria to get to the teeth in crevices that were not there before. I have about $10K of dental work ahead of me this year with dental insurance picking up a big $1500 of it. I started some of it in December as I did not use much of the insurance last year till then, will use up the full $1500 this year and finish it up in January of 2014 to get as mcuh as I can out of the insurance. My brother squeezed his all in one year to get to deduct it all from taxes. That isn’t going to happen here, so I have to try to get as much covered by insurance as possible. My high schooler looks like he is going to need braces, in fact, I know he should get them, 50% chance was what they said a few years ago, and we lost out on the odds on that one. So dental bills are going to be a big issue here this year as they were last year as my kids had some dental issues that went over the oh so generous insurance amounts.</p>
<p>Yep, the sequence is fillings, rootcanals-crowns, bridges, implants, dentures. With a lot of money to go on that journey.</p>
<p>Pensions are and for quite a while have been greatly underfunded. In our family it is only the govt workers, MDs For HMOs and teachers who have pensions in their futures. S has invested in his employers 401k and a ROTH IRA but hard to trust the stock market.</p>
<p>Pensions are and for quite a while have been greatly underfunded. In our family it is only the govt workers, MDs For HMOs and teachers who have pensions in their futures. S has invested in his employers 401k and a ROTH IRA but hard to trust the stock market.</p>
<p>Just checked the annual funding notice for my pension. I found out that it’s worth $500K right now which was a shock. The cash value balance when I left was about $4K.</p>
<p>The pension fund is 98.5% funded. Assets and liabilities took a fairly big jump in 2012 from 2011. I imagine that they didn’t have to add that much to it as a lot of the gains may have been from the stock market. I just need the company to stay solvent for a few decades.</p>
<p>If “Future Retirees at Greater Fiscal Risk”, then keep on working until you are kicked out to shorten the period of greater fiscal risk. There is nothing else we can do. Savings are not entirely up to you, if they print money (and their is no other way as of now), then your savings become closer to be a paper and not much more.</p>
<p>We have inflation and deflation and have been in this mode for a while. The printing is to prevent more deflation. I look around our supermarket and amazed at how cheap food is in terms of calories. I can buy a dozen medium-sized donuts for $0.99. That’s pretty good in calories/$. I’m only eating about 1,200 calories per day so I don’t think that it costs us very much for me. My wife and daughter don’t eat much either.</p>
<p>Well, consuming donuts on a regular basis as a staple food is definitely a great solution as it for sure will shorten the period of greater fiscal risk, if this is the goal. It might be the cheapest solution also, never thought about it. Superior analysis, great discovery, BCEagle! BTW, I love donuts, not from the store though, I love very expansive donuts, the ones that people bring to the offcie to celebrate thier B-days.</p>
<p>I wonder if HP will give me the option of a lump sum payout. That would be interesting. I have some comments on HP but I’ll put those on the investing thread.</p>
<p>Everyone stop talking about money. I NEED to know where I can get some of what sound like expensive, fancy donuts. MiamiDAP, what are these donuts and where can they be had? Seriously. I adore donuts and haven’t been in a Dunkin Donuts since the great mouse expose a few years ago.</p>
<p>And speaking of baked goods, who saw that Magnolia got shut down for a while for healthcode violations. What is this world coming to, I ask you?</p>