The Very-Many-Questions-Not-Worth-Their-Own-Thread Thread 36

[civvver]

I mean we complain about it, but realistically our health plan is still much better than the competition. Well anecdotally, I ask around. The only people I know with better work for the university of Michigan in their health department and some teachers.

So these programs are not meant to actually improve health but only to jip you out of money?

 

[rah]

Health saves them money, but if they jip you out of a few bucks, it's an added bonus

 

[Samson]

So these programs are not meant to actually improve health but only to jip you out of money?

While they may help in some circumstances, I would wager that "Significantly and measurably improve employees life expectancy" was pretty low on the list of deliverables of this change management project.

 

[Samson]

What opioids are neither prescription nor illegal in the US?

I was reading this about Purdue Pharma, and it says "On average, 130 Americans die from an opioid overdose every day, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In 2017, of the 70,200 people who died from overdose, 68% involved a prescription or illegal opioid." This seems to indicate that 32% died from an opioid overdose that was neither prescription nor illegal, but I did not think there were such things in America. In the UK you can get very small doses of codeine mixed with NSAID's like aspirin over the counter, but not in the US and you would have a hard job overdosing on those anyway.

 

[Silurian]

Health saves them money, but if they jip you out of a few bucks, it's an added bonus

But will it save them money.
Ignoring the people who leave the annoyed people will not work as hard. They will also pass the annoyance on.
Seems like an easy way to loose more than a $100.

 

[rah]

They probably save more money by you just staying healthy. That 100 doesn't buy much health care

 

[civvver]

They probably save more money by you just staying healthy. That 100 doesn't buy much health care

well that's my question. Do online yes no kind of things actually make you healthier? All it can possibly do is raise awareness. Does awareness lead to improved health?

I can't think of any opiods that do not require prescriptions and are legal. Even lower tier stuff like Tylenol 3s require prescriptions.

 

[rah]

well that's my question. Do online yes no kind of things actually make you healthier? All it can possibly do is raise awareness. Does awareness lead to improved health?

I have to believe it does or there's not much money in it for them. Health is big bucks. But then WTH do I know. But I did work for an insurance company for almost 15 years. (which really doesn't prove anything but it sure sounds good)

 

[Traitorfish]

I thought a spade was a shovel and the club was a scepter for beating people.

Anyway my question needs a little backstory. We switched health insurance administrators at work this year. We're self funded so nothing in the plan changed, only the company that does the paper work and payments and network stuff. We always get incentive rewards, which is kind of bull crap, it's really more hoops we have to jump through to get the same benefits as before. For example the company used to put 2000 in my family hsa account but then they reduced it to 1800 but there's up to 200 in incentives I can earn. Last year it was easy though, get a physical, get a flu shot and fill out a health questionnaire and I got the 200.

This year it's different. I have to accomplish online goals through the new insurance website. The goals are ridiculous though. I signed up for manage stress, eat better, exercise and mental health. What I have to do is for the next four weeks I need to login and click little icons to say my stress level, mood, whether I ate on track and exercised. To complete my goal I need to record low stress, eating on track and happy or ok mood 21/28 days. Exercise I need 20 or more minutes 9/28 days. You self report so there's no way for them to tell.

My question is, why would any company think this is beneficial? Is it like some kind of subconscious psychological warfare that making you aware of eating healthy makes you more likely to eat healthy? They don't even define what on track eating is lol. You just log on track, mostly on track or not on track. Thing is I've been on a diet and exercising anyway so I'm not lying when I log 20+ minutes of exercise every day, but you totally could. It just seems rather pointless but I'll get $100 for doing this crap for four weeks.

Capitalism tends towards the panopticon, but is also tends towards half-assing everything, so what you get is a half-assed panopticon. Fordist social engineering for the outsourcing era.

 

[Silurian]

I thought a spade was a shovel...

A spade is for digging and is normally flat.
A shovel is for shoveling loose material and is often slightly rounded so that it can pick up more material.

 

[Cutlass]

What opioids are neither prescription nor illegal in the US?

I was reading this about Purdue Pharma, and it says "On average, 130 Americans die from an opioid overdose every day, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In 2017, of the 70,200 people who died from overdose, 68% involved a prescription or illegal opioid." This seems to indicate that 32% died from an opioid overdose that was neither prescription nor illegal, but I did not think there were such things in America. In the UK you can get very small doses of codeine mixed with NSAID's like aspirin over the counter, but not in the US and you would have a hard job overdosing on those anyway.

I'm inclined to think that was bad reporting. I don't know of any opioids that aren't either prescription, or illegal. Even Tylenol with codeine is prescription in the US. But they may be talking about actual opium derivatives, where "opioids" refers to synthetic drugs, while opium derivatives includes heroine. And it is fairly common for an opioid addicted person to move to heroine because of availability and cost.

 

[Synobun]

The writer of the article dropped the ball. They're referring to all overdoses in general. 68% were with opiates.

 

[cardgame]

@Samson @Cutlass

They might be referring to stolen/black market prescription opiates (think street oxy) as another option, although the number would seem a bit high if that were the case.

 

[Takhisis]

So, Dr. House, then?

 

[Gori the Grey]

This year it's different. I have to accomplish online goals through the new insurance website. The goals are ridiculous though. I signed up for manage stress, eat better, exercise and mental health. What I have to do is for the next four weeks I need to login and click little icons to say my stress level, mood, whether I ate on track and exercised. To complete my goal I need to record low stress, eating on track and happy or ok mood 21/28 days. Exercise I need 20 or more minutes 9/28 days. You self report so there's no way for them to tell.

Having to do that would elevate my stress level. And I suppose I would say so on the little survey.

By the way, what they'll end up doing is, you'll get some illness; they'll determine that if you'd actually done the things you reported yourself as having done, you never would have got that illness, ergo they don't have to cover it.

 

[shadowplay]

What opioids are neither prescription nor illegal in the US?

I was reading this about Purdue Pharma, and it says "On average, 130 Americans die from an opioid overdose every day, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In 2017, of the 70,200 people who died from overdose, 68% involved a prescription or illegal opioid." This seems to indicate that 32% died from an opioid overdose that was neither prescription nor illegal, but I did not think there were such things in America. In the UK you can get very small doses of codeine mixed with NSAID's like aspirin over the counter, but not in the US and you would have a hard job overdosing on those anyway.

Loperamide is OTC in the US and is technically an opioid, though not the kind that can be abused.

 

[civvver]

Having to do that would elevate my stress level. And I suppose I would say so on the little survey.

By the way, what they'll end up doing is, you'll get some illness; they'll determine that if you'd actually done the things you reported yourself as having done, you never would have got that illness, ergo they don't have to cover it.

Well that's still illegal here but I hear the trump administration is asking the doj to reverse rulings on obamacare again so who knows for how much longer lol

 

[Kyriakos]

Can someone translate this spanish sentence?

"
¡Madre de Dios!—el sonido—ese sonido—¡oiga Vd! ¿lo oye Vd?
"

@Takhisis maybe.

 

[The_J]

I had a quick look through the lists of opiates on wikipedia, to see if I could quickly identify anything what is used as drug otherwise (or if something catches my eye by accident).
Loperamide is one, as well as e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Co-codaprin or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benzylfentanyl (apparently that's not anymore illegal in the US), and the latter says that you can apparently overdose on fentanyl analogous.
But Synsensa has already pointed it out: The article says that 68% of all deaths are attributable to illegal or prescription opioids.
This indicates that there are other kinds of overdoses, but not that opioids must be the cause, and it also indicates that other kinds of opioids exists, but not necessarily that you could overdose on them.

 

[Takhisis]

Can someone translate this spanish sentence?

"
¡Madre de Dios!—el sonido—ese sonido—¡oiga Vd! ¿lo oye Vd?
"

@Takhisis maybe.

Mother of God! The sound - that sound - you*, do you hear it?

*2nd person singular respectful you, I should add.