Ask the grumpies: worth fighting insurance company?

L asks:

My employer switched health insurance companies/networks recently and a service that used to cost $75 with the old network’s discounts now costs $175 with the new network, apparently there is no discounted price. It’s the exact same service and a month apart, so it’s not like prices went up in the meantime. I told the benefits department at my company this and they gave me a bunch of bullcrap about how the new network is supposed to save us money and unfortunately my case is one where it costs more than twice as much. There’s a distribution list and I asked and there are other people seeing similar increases in service costs.

While I can absorb this, it is rather annoying and I now have the high deductible plan, so it is 100% my cost. I did finally get the bill in the mail from the provider and sure enough, it is $175 like the insurance company’s website said it would be. Do you think that I can call the provider and try to negotiate my own discount since there was such a large discrepancy between back to back visits? I really wish my employer would do something like this since we as individuals have no pull with the insurance company, but they have enough employees that they probably would…

Sigh.

Thanks!

Well, the only time we’ve ever had luck negotiating with an insurance company is when we’ve been in the right. And even then it has sometimes taken multiple phone calls. Still, it’s always worth a shot, if you think your time is worth it– you can report back to us.

What do our readers think? Have you ever had any success negotiating with an insurance company? Any thoughts for L?

Stock investing: Focus on what you can control

With the market recovering, assorted PF bloggers are getting into the details of stock investing.  They all have some system that they think is going to beat the market.  Most of these systems take a lot of time, but they say the time expense is worth it if they can make higher returns than the market.

On average, once fees and transaction costs are considered, people who try to actively manage their portfolios make LESS than people who just stick money in diversified target-date funds and sit.

That means that the majority of people who sink time in with whatever system they’re following are making less money in the market than the people who just set and forget.  On top of that, they’re making less money than they would be if they were spending that time doing something that actually earns money.  (Cynically, some of these folks are getting advertising $ from their blogs for misleading people into becoming active investors.)

What can you control:

1.  The amount of money you put in
2.  The diversification mix of your portfolio
3.  The fees you pay

What can’t you control:

1.  Market returns
2.  The random walk down WallStreet

And what you might have difficulty controlling:

1.  Man’s (and to a much lesser extent, according to Greg O’Dean, Woman’s) tendency to trade too much and at exactly the wrong times

If you want to invest like Buffett, then buy some Berkshire Hathaway funds.

Even better, pick a target date and buy a Vanguard Target-date fund.  (If you’re not sure about when you’re going to retire, pick a late date.)

Why do I do this to myself? A research rant!

Why do I put projects down and not pick them up forever?

I spend so much fricking time trying to figure out what I was doing a year, two years, five years ago.

A lot of this is my coauthors’ fault.  I hate nagging and other coauthors don’t, so I’m often low on the queue.  And sometimes there will be something they have to do that I can’t do.  And months will pass.

But… that doesn’t explain why I do this to myself on single-authored papers too.

And I always swear to myself that this time I will leave myself better notes.  More complete files with better comments.   Ugh.  Unfortunately whatever it was that caused me to put something down often keeps me from putting it away neatly too.

One benefit of having to figure out what the heck it was I was doing– I often find mistakes.  But really, I’d prefer to find those mistakes in a faster way.

#2 chimes in:

Cripes, I do that too!  I have so many things that are around 85% done.  All the hard part is done!  If I just put in a few hours, fewer than 10, I can send this stuff out for publication by the end of this month.  But yet, I don’t do it!

There are various reasons for this.  Sometimes, I stall out when I don’t know what to do next.  Instead of asking for help like a reasonable being, I try to pretend nothing’s wrong.  I have some fear that the project somehow isn’t right, in some way (not rigorous enough?  stats not correct?), and that reviewers will, I don’t know, laugh at me.  This is silly because peer review, whether through a journal submission or  just asking colleagues for informal feedback, will catch existing problems and make the paper better.  Maybe those problems aren’t even there and I’m just imagining them!

Maybe I have a fear of success.  If this article is great, I have to keep producing great things!  What if the next one isn’t as good, or I can’t get the next one done?  I better hold on to this one in case I need a submission for next year.  (??!!?!?!?!?)

Sometimes, I get distracted.  For example, I have to get my RAs started on data collection for the next project, and that takes a lot of time and energy, and I don’t make it a priority to finish writing the previous paper.  I’m dumb like that.

Sometimes, it’s just hard work and I’m tired.  In my head, I have found great results and know what they mean.  Or found not-great results and I’m already working on a follow-up study that fixes this one’s limitations.  Taking the extra time to explain complex results for an audience can be tedious.

Sometimes, I can’t face the thought of all the work still to come.  I can submit for publication and forget about the paper for a while… yay!  But then I might get a revise-and-resubmit, and have to do YET MORE work on this project that I am mentally done with, and that would be tedious.  Or I could not do the revisions, and send it somewhere else.  This works a surprising number of times.

On the upside: A pre-tenure push to clear the backlog has really paid off for me.  But I need to try not to get such a backlog in the first place.

Grumpy readers, please smack us upside the head and tell us to stop being dorks, ok?  Also, send cookies. (Do you do this kind of stuff too?)

Does forcing kids to be bored teach them useful skills?: A deliberately controversial post

Related: does forcing kids to be with sucky people teach them important life skills?

We argue: no

Boredom leads to trouble and increased drop-out rates.   It would have to be an important skill to make up for the negatives.  But it isn’t.

As an adult, you have more control over your environment, so learning these skills (such as they are) may not be as applicable as we’d wish.

Better: give kids skills to manipulate their environment, so they know they can change it.

If they do have to be occasionally bored or to deal with sucky people, why not learn that on the job as adults? It’s an easier lesson to learn when you’re making the choice to deal with it because you’re getting a higher paycheck or other perks to your job.

And nobody should have to put up with a sucky work environment as an adult. That’s why we work so hard so we have options and freedom to change things, even if our parents sacrificed in their own work environments for us.

This post was brought to you by our childhood selves, who were bored as crap in school and got nothing useful out of grades 1 – 8.  [#2 says, except 4th grade with Mrs. A.  She was AWESOME.]

The Grumpies Weigh-in on Current Issues

Topic 1: students who don’t read the syllabus.

THE SYLLABUS, YOU MUST OBEY!  OBEY!!!!

 (or, take your F and go away)

email me and you will see

how very angry I can be

 #2:  scary!

 #1:  I know right

 #2:  “Dr. #1 is scary.  Don’t take classes from her unless you’re really smart and responsible.”

 #1:  True story

Topic 2: Boobs.

 #1:  so who do you agree with re: boobgate, Historiann or Dr. Crazy?

 #2:  I haven’t read dr crazy yet.  I did read historiann and mildly agree with her.

 #1:  I also agree with historiann

and also understand that most people would have excused the misogyny if he’d at least been funny (and not just “women have no sense of humor” unfunny, but even unfunny to sexist men!)

 #2:  My partner chuckled occasionally, but also felt that a lot of it fell very very flat.  He remarked, “Chances that Seth McFarlane ever hosts anything again:  Approaching zero.”

#2:  I’m reading dr crazy too, and I slightly agree with her as well.

#1:  I think Dr. Crazy is right that this points out the standards of Hollywood.  But I also am fairly sure that was not Seth McFarlane’s intention.  I think that no, really, his audience is jerky 12 year old boys

#2:  actually I think it kinda WAS his intention

#1:  really?

#2:  yes, but our views are not mutually exclusive.  He could be honestly poking at Hollywood while at the same time also appealing to 12-year-olds

 #1:  and even if it did, hollywood can feel good about slamming him down and getting back to business as usual, meaning he messed up.  He needs the “wink” to show he’s being ironic.

 #2:  I feel like Seth McFarlane at the Oscars is such a tiny blip in the landscape of prevailing misogyny that I can’t get that upset about it.

 Sexist or not-sexist, I wish he had been FUNNIER

 #1:  that’s what everyone is saying!

 #2:  some parts were mildly funny

some parts… were bombs

(relatively independently of what the subject matter was)

 #1:  also I watched Will Ferrell accept the Mark Twain award, which also made me laugh and had a little bit of poking at the patriarchy in it, which was a pleasant surprise

 #2:  Yes!

 #1:  the steve martin/alec baldwin intro to the oscars was not actually particularly politically correct, but it sure was funny

 #2:  ah, see, here:  I agree with Flavia:  ”I actually wasn’t particularly bothered by the “boobs” number. It was the casual, relentless misogyny in the rest of MacFarlane’s act that did it for me. Like his description of “Zero Dark Thirty” as testimony to women’s ability “to never, ever let anything go.” Like his saying that it didn’t matter if we can understand a word Salma Hayek or Penelope Cruz say, because they’re great to look at. And on, and on. “

 #1:  right

 #2:  right

the boobs number was actually somewhat amusing.  The “women can’t let go” joke was offensive.

 #1:  I don’t think seth mcfarlane was trying to point out misogyny– I think he just is a misogynist

 #2:  he can be both.

 #1:  well, I meant boob controversy as teh whole thing

he lives and breathes misogyny

can’t help it

 #2:  and here is where I agree with dr. crazy:  ”And so, while I don’t think that McFarlane was a laugh riot, and I am deeply suspicious of the way that irony is used as an alibi for sexism these days, I didn’t find him demonstrably more offensive than most of the pop culture that I encounter on a daily basis.”

 #1:  no, it was obviously the combination with being offensive and not being funny

even ricky gervais was forgiven for skewering hollywood becasue more folks found him hilarious

Topic 3:  Creepy education.

 #1:  I think that this is a good idea:  http://money.msn.com/now/post.aspx?post=07ca13bf-c915-4b87-a44e-55ba4d02ba55  but MUST we start an article about education with an assassination analogy?  I think that’s tasteless.

 #2:  more than a bit creepy

 #1:  yes

 #2: intro analogies are pretty bad journalism anyway

 #1:  goddamn, I know.

You don’t have to sleep train

No seriously, if it’s making you miserable, this isn’t something you need to do.  Grumpy rumblings gives you permission to not do it.  You’re not spoiling your kid.  You’re not destroying your child’s chances of ever being able to sleep at night or whatever dire consequence you think is going to happen.

There is nothing wrong with nursing to sleep.  No, the baby won’t be needing the breast to get to sleep at age 5.  There’s a reason breastmilk has sleepy juice and anti-cavity stuff in it.  Even if you wanted to breast feed forever, the kid will eventually wean on his or her own.  You’re not fostering bad habits that will have to be broken later.  And, the baby can fall asleep a different way for a different care provider even while nursing to sleep with you.  Rocking is fine too unless you dislike doing it.  Again, five year olds don’t need to be rocked to sleep.

Yes, some parents are absolutely desperate for sleep, and if their kid is older than 6 months, it probably won’t do any harm to try sleep training (making sure they’re using a real method of CIO like Ferber’s, and not some crack-pot thing they found on the internet that could get the child protective services called in on them).  [Note:  ending co-sleeping with an older child.]

It is OK if your kid doesn’t take naps.  Honest.  You don’t need a rigid schedule.  If your kid is cranky from lack of sleep then, sure, encourage naps and sleeping in, but if your kid is perfectly happy… that is OK.  You’re not a bad parent.  Really!

Cosleep if that works for you.  Don’t cosleep if it doesn’t.  Stick to a schedule if that’s what’s easiest, but don’t bother if it is making you miserable.  There is no “You have to do this,” in parenting once you get past the basics of food, shelter, clothing, interaction, and love.

Also, while we’re at it– you don’t need to force pureed organic baby foods down your kid’s throat if the kid isn’t ready for them.  If they just come right back out, you have our permission to take a break from trying.  And no, solids will not help your baby Sleep Through The Night, even if your pediatrician says they will– pubmed disagrees.  And it’s ok if your baby doesn’t sleep through the night!  Sleeping through the night is unnatural and an invention that we’ve only had since electric lighting.

Honest to goodness… kids have been doing this sleeping thing (not to mention the eating thing) for aeons.  The idea that somehow we have to train them to do it (or dire consequences) rather than it being hard-coded seems pretty ridiculous.  In fact, with so much of this parenting, it seems like you get exactly the results you don’t want if you try to force something rather than letting it take its course.  (Disclaimer:  some kids do have disorders like reflux and other things that interfere with sleep… those should be checked out by your pediatrician–get to the root of the problem.)

This tiny rant brought to you by #1′s kid being old enough that she’s hearing folks’ stress again.  And having some seriously scary interviews with potential mothers helpers.  Aieeeee!

This is why we can’t have nice things.

This [grant thing] that [redacted] has is really stupid.  So much bad science to “further women and minorities”.  Reading through their annual report and it’s thing after thing of, “We had this workshop, but nobody came.”  They’re also not checking to see if anything works even when people do come.  There’s not even data collected before and after to see if there’s even a change, much less a treatment effect.  There was one thing where they’re like, “we were going to do this survey but…”  They sent the report to me to evaluate, but the entire campus was “treated” and uh… the treatment seems to have been nothing.

Bad science makes the baby Jesus cry.  Poor baby Jesus.

They seem to have a lot of meetings too.  So basically, trying to further the careers of women and minorities at this school consists of making them go to pointless meetings.

See, this is why women and minorities can’t have nice things.

Argh!

(Note:  Some details in the above rant have been changed to protect both the stupid and our own rear ends.)

Are you ever astonished by the amount of bad science done for a good cause?  Have you ever noticed that it’s always the under-represented who have to waste time in meetings?

Fred: Ghost or gremlin? And an origin story.

Back in the days of our youth, #1 and #2 were roommates.  We were lucky to have relatively spacious dorms, with one bathroom per room.  (The only downside?  We had to clean it ourselves.)

Our toilet randomly flushed itself.  We decided that our toilet was possessed by a ghost, and we named him Fred.  The next year there were toilet clogs and light flickers.

Fred followed #2 to college and was finally exorcised by a friend who dabbled in things Wicca (and new-age).  He would show up occasionally in graduate school (at which point #2 started thinking Fred might be a gremlin rather than a ghost), mainly sticking to plumbing and electrical things.  He will often do both at the same time but thankfully has not as of yet had the chance to mix the two.  (We like being, you know, alive.)

Now Fred’s back to make #2′s day a difficult one…

No work today.  We have a severe Fred infestation.   My laptop, desktop, and external hard drive are all dead.  My laptop no longer boots and started smoking while not booting.  My desktop has been reformatted because it keeps restarting and getting the video card replaced didn’t fix it.  And my external harddrive has bad sectors and has been getting “i/o errors” which I understand is a bad thing.  Partner’s laptop has this stupid red dot thing; where is my external mouse?  The internet at work keeps turning on and off.  Also all of our sinks have been leaking and partner broke a pipe trying to fix one.  And two of our toilets are randomly refilling.  It will be a while before either of us will be able to wait for a plumber.

#1 had a good day though.  I just got word that I have passed another level in my tenure process!

#2: maybe Fred is sticking with me to bring you luck
in which case, I will take that temporary sacrifice

#1: I really appreciate your taking one for the team.

Hope your Thanksgiving holidays are Fred-free, dear grumplings!

Facts and Opinions are not the same thing!!!!

That is all.

If I were a SAHM…

My kid would be doing calculus instead of triple digit subtraction.

Ze would be reading at an 8th grade level rather than a 4th grade level.

Hir handwriting would be atrocious.

Ze would not know how to put away toys.

Hir mediation skills and interaction with other kids would not be as good.

Ze wouldn’t have had as large a vocabulary.

Ze would be much better at video games.

Ze would be an even better cook.

Ze would not know much art beyond scribbles.

Ze would be playing piano already.

Anyhow, not better or worse, just different.  Blah blah, it takes a village, blah blah.  I need to stop reading GRS.  Judgmental SAHM apparently spend a lot of time not paying attention to their children while posting on there about how WOHM don’t pay enough attention to their children… something one thought one got away from by not being on mommy forums.

(Standard disclaimer:  We know that by far the majority of SAHM are not judgmental bitches.  But there’s a small number who take it upon themselves to be so.  Sometimes their kids turn out ok anyway!  Also we’re sure there’s an equally small number of judgmental bitchy WOHM whose kids may also turn out ok anyway, as well as child-free by choice judgmental bitches, and judgmental bitchy dads… basically we’re saying judgmental bitchiness is orthogonal to parenting status, work status, and gender.  This rant only covers one type of judgmental bitch, however.)

How would your kid(s) be different if hir/their parenting situation(s) were different?  Or how would you be different if your parents’ situations had been different?