You could segment them in three sets: well insured, people with catastrophic health plans, and uninsured. Many employers are switching to high deductible health plans and that deductible may be thousands of dollars, i.e. catastrophic plans.
When going to a doctor for a simple diagnosis or bloodwork can easily cost $400 to $1000, many put off doctor visits unless it's an emergency. It can easily become a choice between a doctor visit or a car repair. Preventative checkups are gone and insurance is only something one uses with an emergency room visit or major health issue.
What parts to you find fulfilling? One approach would be to assign a value to aspects of a job you find fulfilling. This could include things like a short commute, casual dress, flex hours, remote work, low politics, good/smart coworkers, and challenging projects. For some challenging projects may be worth a lot, for others remote work to be with family could have the highest value.
Were people going to the doctor and ER less before covid? As employers move to offer only high deductible health insurance, the cost to see a doctor is increasing quickly. When a single doctor visit can cost from $150 to $1500 depending on what they talk about and you're paying that entire amount, one tends to put of seeing a doctor unless it's a true emergency.
In primary school I read anything and everything but my favorite was science fiction. After finishing school, I didn't read as much and noticed something: my creativity seemed less and I wasn't coming up with many big 'next step' ideas. After starting to read regularly again, it came back.
Stories like this are scary. My employer based health insurance has an $18,000 deductible before it starts to cover 70% of approved, in-network bills. One visit to ER could easily cost me $20,000. A simple doctor visit can range from $150 to $1000. The effect is that any doctor visit is viewed as a last resort option.
While I don't use any pesticides, farms and cities use high amounts of pesticides. Farms apply pesticides by crop-dusting and with tractors. Cities drive trucks up and down every street fogging the entire city with mosquito pesticides.
If enough people complained to the cities about the harmful effects of spraying, they may stop. Convincing agriculture to use less pesticides would be much harder and likely involve powerful lobbies at the state and federal level.
In the past, large wildflowers and flowering bushes in my front yard would draw many butterflies and bees. The city started spaying all neighborhoods for mosquitoes every few weeks. You don't see butterflies or bees around any more. The bee hives in a nearby city were killed by mosquito spraying.
Burnout in IT can be like boiling a frog. One can get involved in larger and larger projects, then architecture, and then find themselves part of an on-call group that tries to keep production systems running. Pretty soon one is working excessive hours monitoring systems, driving projects, and also responding to production issues 24x7.
If it happens gradually enough, working twelve hours a day and being called repeatedly during evenings and weekends can feel normal. The high cost on one's health, social life, and family life can be extreme and quite dangerous.
Isn't this a recurring theme for the last few decades? A telco takes federal money with the promise of laying fiber, providing broadband, and creating jobs. Next, they don't do any of that and ask for more money a year later.
This is a key point. With physical controls, you learn their location and use them without looking. This leads to better focus on driving. With a touch screen, you're distracted every time you need to use it.
Thank you. It's nice to see references to real studies as opposed to the social logic saying 'It's the same as anti-vaxers, so there's no basis to that!'
Switching from a co-pay based insurance to an HDHP + HSA was a big change. My deductible is quite high, so all normal, non-catastrophic medical costs are paid for without insurance.
A doctor visit starts at $139 and may be from $300 to $500 depending on the diagnosis. One cannot determine the cost in advance. Any lab work is extra. Is it worth $1000 every year to have a doctor do standard blood tests?
Like anything that suddenly becomes very expensive, it makes one look at things differently and question whether they are necessary. Some people put off doctor visits longer until things seem unbearable. Some research online and try to self medicate with over the counter things.
As employers switch to High Deductible Health Plans where insurance doesn't kick in until one has spent a deductible of several thousand dollars, many people are delaying health care in general. A doctor's visit that once cost a co-pay of $30 is now frequently a cash price from $130 to $400, plus more for lab work. With higher costs and much of them unknown in advance, many skip getting things checked until it seems absolutely necessary.
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