Mercury Spill

Post by jstanley » Fri, Oct 09, 2015, 4:06 PM UTC

existencebox wrote: post #305

harshreality wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The car was only blue booked at 5k at the time, but we had to replace it with a 25k car, so I count that as a decent amount of loss. That's twisted logic. There was a loss of perhaps somewhat more than $5k all things considered, but you didn't have to replace a $5k blue-book-value car with a $25k car. That $25k may have been a big outlay if you paid cash, but it's not a loss for that amount. So far, you've only los…

I think you might have been misunderstanding my statement, as I would agree that the loss ranges between 5-10k (not far from your estimate.) To me it's a sum of 2 things: Loss of a 5k car + loss of opportunity/investment returns of 25k over at least 5 years. Don't mean to compare to OP's 50k repair bill, but even 5k-10k for someone else's negligence hurts when insurance somehow dodges the bullet.

Post by ghaff » Fri, Oct 09, 2015, 4:32 PM UTC

jvdh wrote: post #240

vixen99 wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Impact unknown! Meanwhile many American dentists install mercury amalgam (about 50% Hg) in tooth cavities inches from the brain where it will sit for years on end. How can anyone support this with a straight face. The response is something like 'yes,we know mercury is a devastating neurotoxin but it's tightly bound in the amalgam and there is no proven statistical relationship to say it's dangerous'.

Haven't amalgam fillings been phased out yet? At least in the Netherlands most dentists now use composites to fill cavities. Wikipedia seems to suggest that the performance of those is comparable to amalgam: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dental_composite Cost also seems to be comparable, where composites may even be cheaper than amalgam, because of all the environmental issues surrounding the amalgam material.

Post by ghaff » Fri, Oct 09, 2015, 4:46 PM UTC

grecy wrote: post #78

A friend of mine has a "mercury blob maze" [1] where you have a little blob of mercury trapped in a plastic container and you have to get it through the maze - it was fun to use at different temperatures, as the blob would want to break apart when hot, or not move at all when cold. Shaking it turns it into 300 blobs. Upon seeing it, my science teacher dad had some cool stories about playing with Mercury 20-30 years a…

Post by dreaminvm » Fri, Oct 09, 2015, 4:59 PM UTC

tajen wrote: post #231

cortesoft wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, self insurance is always better if possible, since that means your cost is exactly equal to your risk. When you buy third party insurance, your cost is going to equal your risk + profit + overhead for the insurance company. You self insure when you can afford the max cost you could incur (e.g. You could buy a new car if you had to.) You buy insurance when you can't afford the rare but very costly catastrophic lo…

When renting a car, I don't usually take the insurance to reduce the excess from $5,000 to $0. However, I wonder whether rental companies are then keener to take note of a little scratch, especially when it was preexisting but gone unnoticed at initial inspection.

Post by tomjen3 » Fri, Oct 09, 2015, 5:08 PM UTC

gnopgnip wrote: post #202

irixusr wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hate to agree because what the insurance company did is nasty. But you're right. Which is why I'm skeptical of the AMA requirements to cover certain recurrent health services (annual checkups, contraception). If they're unavoidable than its not insurance!

Its about the total cost accounting. Many types of insurance offer discounted, or even free services for things that lower your total risk. You get a break on home insurance for having an alarm system. Car insurance will replace the windshield for free if it is chipped. It is cheaper for them in the long run to replace the glass and have people driving with an unobstructed view. Yearly checkups for some insurance pla…