The Yin Blog

A small clue about our health care costs?

I took my older son to a dental check-up today, and it was a very efficient process. We checked in, didn't wait long to be called, and the attention was good.

Then I took a look at the full billing statement, which showed what services were provided, what they cost (rack rate), what amount the HMO covered, and what amount we owed/paid. The only amount in the last category was the $15 co-pay, which was certainly reasonable.

$77 for about 10 minutes of the dentist's time . . . probably inflated a bit to make it seem like the insurance coverage was a good deal, but I wouldn't call it unreasonable.

X-rays, fluoride treatment, etc. Fine, fine fine.

$60 for instructions on brushing teeth?!?

I know this doesn't really matter, since it's just an arbitrary amount that the HMO has decided it's going to claim that its services are worth (except that there is a cap on annual benefits), but is there any relation between that amount and reality? I was there, and it was about 2-3 minutes of a list of rules. $60???

An example of California's useless over-regulation as what not to emulate

Here's an example of how California arguably over-regulates. California Proposition 65 requires businesses to post a sign warning customers about the potential presence of significant amounts of toxic chemicals in their locations. That sounds like a good idea!

But the devil is in the details. During our winter break trip to southern California, the place we were staying at had one of those Prop 65 signs posted in its underground garage. Yikes! Toxic chemicals in the garage? What we were exposing ourselves -- especially our boys -- to?

The sign didn't say, which made it all the more ominous.

By scouring the information binder in our room, however, I was able to determine that the toxic chemicals in question were . . . secondhand cigarette smoke and automobile exhaust.

No doubt Prop 65 is well-meaning, but if it requires businesses to warn about secondhand smoke and automobile exhaust, it risks becoming worthless through over-warning. It's much like highlighting every line in your textbook -- there's no differentiation.

If I had $149 to spend frivolously, this would be near the bottom of the list

Wait, it's not just $149, but $12.90 in shipping and handling. And, well, it's not even accurate. I mean, from 1996 to 1998, I was clerking for federal judges, and while that's a different kind of public service, it definitely wasn't as a member of the Bar. And from late-1998 to mid-2002, I guess I was serving the community, if you define "community" as super-powerful corporations and elite wealthy individuals. And from mid-2002 on, I've been teaching and haven't practiced at all. . . .

Heck, I haven't even bothered to display my law school diploma, and I have much warmer feelings toward Cal than I do toward law practice. . . .

A reminder of the outrageous Vincent Chin murder case

Vincent Chin would be 56 this year if he hadn't been murdered back in 1982. Here's a reminder of the travesty of injustice from his killers' trials:

It will be 29 years on June 19th.  On that day in 1982, Ebens, a then 42-year-old white Chrysler autoworker, along side with his stepson accomplice Michael Nitz, then 23, took a baseball bat and bludgeoned Vincent Chin, a 27-year-old Chinese American, to death on Woodward Avenue in Highland Park, a suburb of Detroit.

***

The facts are indisputable. Some witnesses say Nitz held down Chin. Some say he didn't. Everyone says he was there and did nothing to stop Ebens, who ferociously struck and beat Chin repeatedly, with two savage blows to the head leaving Chin unconscious.

For their admitted role in Chin's death, here's the amount of time Ebens and Nitz served for the crime they committed: zero.

***

Ebens and Nitz were allowed to plea bargain in a Michigan court to escape mandatory jail time for second degree murder.  Ebens pleaded guilty; Nitz pleaded nolo contendere. Both men got this sentence: three years' probation, a $3,000 fine, and $780 in court costs.

How much faculty time is wasted because of the ABA?

Just got out of a faculty meeting, the last 30 or so minutes of which were essentially wasted time because of figuring out how to satisfy a well-intentioned but needlessly nitpicking ABA requirement.

It makes you wonder how much collective faculty time is lost each year because of the ABA. And yet the one thing that AALS decides to stand up to the ABA on is the self-serving issue of the ABA's proposed elimination of tenure as a requirement of accreditation.

A minor roadbump on the route to decreasing BMI

I suppose this is still progress, seeing as how I'm mildly disappointed to see my weight back at 160 after several post-workout weigh-ins of 159. (That's a BMI of 23.0, versus 22.8.)

But it was likely the result of an unfortunate but very tasty encounter with a seafood brunch buffet.

Buffets and my pre-law training in economics have been a very bad combination, since I irrationally -- well, maybe it's not irrational in the economic sense -- think I should maximize the value I receive, which if you're not careful, involves eating way too much. I think I sort of avoided that yesterday because I didn't feel overstuffed, but I probably still ate more than I should have. However, I think I managed to do reasonably well on getting my value, since I concentrated on the pricey stuff that I get to eat very infrequently, like crab legs, raw oysters, and smoked salmon.

Is the body mass index calculator relentlessly harsh?

Throughout adolescence and early adulthood, I was perpetually underweight.  I ate a lot, but between a fast metabolism, cross-country (one season), tennis (two seasons), and Ultimate (throughout journalism school and law school), I was never more than 150 pounds at 5'10", and frequently, I was more like 135 pounds, or even less.

Somehow -- and there's probably a direct causation here -- when I started working as a lawyer, however, I broke past 160 pounds, and at times hit as much as 170.  I managed to get down to about 165, but when we moved to Oregon, my beloved treadmill did not make the trip with us.  For the first year and a half or so of being in Oregon, I was without that treadmill and too lazy/unmotivated/busy to find a gym, so I hit 170 or so again.

Now, I don't need the body mass index calculator to tell me that 170 is too much for me to weigh.  Per my height, that's a BMI of 24.4, which is still in the "normal range" for weight, but dangerously close to 24.9, which is the upper limit before you get classified as "overweight."  (Basically, another 3.5 pounds. . . .)  Some generous folks have told me that I didn't look nearly overweight last fall, so maybe I hid the extra pounds well.

Anyway, I found a nearby gym/club that I like and have been going there since the beginning of this year, and I've managed to drop about 8-10 pounds so far.

But wow, BMI is pretty harsh!  At 160 pounds, my BMI is still 23.0.  To put that in context, "normal weight" is a BMI range of 18.5 to 24.9.  The middle point of that range (~21.75) would correspond to 152 pounds for me.  It's not so much that 152 pounds is an unreasonable weight goal for me (I think at this point I'd be pleased with anything from 150-155 pounds), but that I could weigh as little as 128 pounds and still be considered normal weight per BMI.

128 pounds?  Really?  I mean, I know that we Americans are relatively overweight as a group, but is it really healthy for a 5'10" male to be below 135-140 pounds?

Not the best place to "boot" a car. . . .

Okay, we have a small parking lot for faculty & staff here at the law school, so I understand why the parking enforcement people are constantly checking permits and giving tickets.  Tickets deter unauthorized parking and generate revenue.  But when you have someone who doesn't respond to the tickets, something else has to be done.

But really, the boot?  That doesn't seem like the best idea in a small parking lot, since that's one fewer space available until the bootee shows up to pay accumulated tickets, etc.  It seems to me that towing would be a better step of escalation.

Leaving Portland for Chicago because of . . . air travel?

A local steel company, Evraz Inc., is moving its headquarters from Portland to Chicago because of the lack of adequate air travel from here to Canadian cities where many of its mills are located.

Yes, Portland's air travel options are less than you would expect given the size of the metropolitan area, which also means that prices are higher than you might expect.

But moving to Chicago?!?  That would mean using O'Hare International Airport all the time!

During my seven years in Iowa, I came to loathe O'Hare.  I can understand that air travel gets totally messed up if there's a foot of snow on the ground.  But I had problems with delayed or even cancelled flights even in reasonably good weather.  It's ridiculous to sit on the tarmac for two hours when the sky is blue and the outside temperature mild, but that's happened to me.  I've had flights from Chicago to Iowa City cancelled with the next available flight being so much later (like a day or even two) that it was much preferable to rent a car and drive the 220 miles.

I'm sure in the long run, the move makes sense for these steel execs.  Still, I can't help but laugh at the idea of moving to Chicago because of air travel.

An obnoxious feature of the Affordable Care Act(?)

I went to my hospital today to have my eyes dilated as part of the vision checkup.  After looking at my health insurance card and driver's license, the receptionist said, "As part of the health care reform, we have to ask you for your race."

"Why do you need to know that?" I asked in the most mild, polite tone that I could, since it was not the poor woman's fault.

"You're free to decline to answer," she said, and added that it used to be really hard for her to ask this question.

I said that I was, quite obviously Asian, but apparently that was not precise enough for the requirements of the new health reform act.  It was necessary for some reason to classify me as not just "Asian" but "Chinese."

I have little reason to doubt the receptionist's statement that she had been instructed to collect this information.  I am curious as to what reason the government would have to make health insurers ask such a question . . . .