Our Dental Insurance Sent Us “Free” Internet-Connected Toothbrushes | Hacker News Reader

Our Dental Insurance Sent Us “Free” Internet-Connected Toothbrushes

wolfstreet.com

I read this article a few times, but I don’t see any quotes of actual communication from either the dental insurance or the toothbrush company. If the second box contained a letter with the purported message, why not post it? If the author received warnings about being in violation of the “free” deal, why not post them? It’s hard to tell here what has actually been said by the insurance or toothbrush vendor vs inferred by the author.

As the business in these cases usually takes place in a form of lie of omission, that slightly bigger amount of data that is collected than promised, that slight adrenaline kick which free IoT toothbrushes were supposed to give OP that should have shut out all doubt about the situation.

And if anything could proof excess data collection or whatever violation of privacy or human reason, it wouldn't be found in the carefully curated communication by any of the companies involved, but the source code that comprises the software running this thing.

I think the point is though, that a major premis of the article was "you must use these brushes and give us your dats OR ELSE", but it was entirely unsubstaniated.

What's it called when you look for a general wisdom in an everyday situation? ethics? That's all I see myself pointed to in the article.

Would we accept "OR ELSE" as a society? Should we? What laws does our government come up with so we can make sure "OR ELSE" doesn't happen past the certain extent it already does? Can we attach a metric for how much "OR ELSE" is too much?

But the article doesnt put forward that the 'OR ELSE' case actually exists. The author just hypothesis it (which is relevant itself!) and goes from there, without providing any sort of hint of evidence.

Your toothbrush certainly does not need an app. But what's the game, I wonder, for the dental insurance company? I mean, _why_ do they want your data? Aggregate data on habits? The chance to shape behavior (better habits) of customers through nags, gamification, etc? Eventually rates tied to compliance? Advertising opps?

I would imagine the insurance company wants all of things you speculated on. Insurances companies would love to know which statistical bucket you fall into, so they can charge you more or less based on your risk of making a claim.

"According to our records your purchases of junk food have increased 16.2% since the previous calendar year. Your insurance premiums have been adjusted accordingly."

This is some Black Mirror level garbage. If this becomes common place there'll be an explosion of automation devices to "use" your toothbrush a couple of times per day.

We should be so lucky that our data would be used to encourage healthy living as opposed to to status quo.

Except when this would drive negative feedback loops. The following scenario may not be frequent or probable, but it is definitely plausible:

1. A rural area has few healthy eating options.

2. Everyone who cares about this sort of thing and has the means to move away leaves.

3. Healthy stores close because there are not enough customers.

4. Only junk food options remain. Now you've essentially increased societal segregation...

This may sound ridiculous, but it is already seriously hard to eat healthy in many areas of the country.

It's not. If you want to eat healthy, go to McDonalds and get a burger. Go to Walmart.

You're serious? What's healthy about that?

A burger is made of meat...

What do you think you need to eat healthy? Some meat, some fat, maybe a few carbs.

This is completely off-topic, but McDonald's is mostly processed foods high in trans fats, all kinds of chemistry, and filled with sugar. There's indeed "some" meat, however it's everything but healthy.

Trans fats are more or less banned in the United States.

The burger patties at McDonald's are real actual 100% beef.

It's not particularly good food, especially if it is served slower than in their test kitchen, but come on.

The burger is not just beef. Everythig in there is processed, artificially sweetened, and rich in preservatives. McDonald's is not healthy, don't be ridiculous.

I'm sure it has a lot of cooties, too.

Most people who look down on McDonalds would have no problem ordering a beer with their burger at a bar.

Isn't the bun made with corn syrup or something like that?

Why would they use an artificial sweetener when part of the reason the sugar is there is to help keep the bread moist?

I do agree that fast food isn't especially healthy, but the biggest issue is that people select meals that are much too large (especially if they get a sugar drink). The menus usually do have options that provide a reasonable number of calories (and cost less), so it is a choice.

There is a logical reason why I suspect artificial sweeteners are being put in many products now with as little fanfare as possible. Sucralose is made from sugar, but like other artificial sweeteners is far sweeter[1] than sugar, by around 3 orders of magnitude. I'm not sure about prices on an industrial scale, but moderately large quantities of sucralose without fillers seem to be about $50/lb, and sugar seems to be about $0.44/lb in 50 lb quantities. Thus, sucralose is around 110 times more expensive, but 300-1000 times more potent. The economic logic of treating sugar with chlorine and putting it in everything seems inescapable, as long as the public doesn't become sensitized.

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sucralose

Edit: I don't know whether or not McDonald's in particular is using sucralose. I'm suggesting that it's a general trend, probably helped by the general public's distaste for things like aspartame, calories, HFCS, and so on.

There's literal pennies of sugar in the typical product. They aren't pushing sucralose to get the extra bit of margin, they are responding to the large number of people that want lower calorie sweets.

I don't think the latter factor, which I mentioned, obviates the issue of cost. The cost of any ingredient is going to be "literally pennies" but that isn't an argument that it doesn't matter to the manufacturer nor that they don't try to optimize it.

the burger isn't especially unhealthy either. The burger patty itself is just beef. They don't add sugar or anything else to it. It's delivered frozen to the store so there are no preservatives. The buns are delivered a couple of times a week from the bakery so there are no preservatives in them either. A burger at McDonalds is really no worse than the burger you'd make at home, assuming you would buy typical grocery store ground beef and hamburger buns. The cheese is pretty much the same sliced American cheese you would get at the supermarket. The ketchup is from Heinz, or Hunts.

The deep fried stuff I would avoid. The french fries, fish, chicken, it's all cooked in vegetable oil. Years ago they used beef lard, until they were pressured into switching. Now we know that cooking in vegetable oil is pretty much worse in every way but they haven't changed back.

  Trans fats are more or less banned in the United States

Not at all. They remain common in packaged food, especially in the form of artificially hydrogenated oils.

Even butter has some naturally occurring transfat.

There's (almost?) no one using partially hydrogenated oils anymore so the story with packaged goods is about the same as butter, in products using fully hydrogenated oils there's a small amount that would be difficult to remove.

The granola bars I eat switched to unprocessed vegetable oil and upgraded their packaging (better oxygen barrier). A lot of products did that.

Meat isn't healthy. Here's some data on that https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PlhJU57KUdQ

That's actually a positive feedback loop.

You are right! I meant positive feedback driving a negative phenomenon.

This seems similar to those telemetrics devices that some car insurers offer. My guess is that they could charge more or less depending on how often you brush your teeth.

Microphones, clock hardware, light sensors, geolocation devices, Bluetooth hardware, WI-fi hardware, and accelerometers are all small enough to fit in an electric toothbrush handle alongside a battery and a toothbrush motor.

One could write software which runs on the toothbrush and reports back everything it can sense in the area. This grants the upstream provider up-to-date information on the environment where the toothbrush is. It's not hard to see how this is profitable in an age where spying is big business. This need not have anything to do with dentistry. Businesses are typically more interested in making more money than they are in adhering to someone else's vision of consistency.

How this data is used is, as always, up to those who possess a copy of the data, and utterly indefinable now. For all we know, it might be handy to know that a Bluetooth device with ID XYZ was present near a given set of global coordinates at a certain time of day and date. Asking how the data is useful is hard to say specifically like asking why a library (public or private) would have a copy of a particular work -- that copy might be useful to someone someday and it is easier than ever to get the public to cooperate in their own loss of privacy by framing every issue around convenience.

I'd be more inclined to fall in line with their data collection practices if dental insurance wasn't so utterly useless as an insurance product.

It almost always makes sense to save the premium payments up and pay out of pocket for any dental services you need.

I would definitely say that about vision, not so much dental. I don't think most people realize how linked dental health is to physical health and wellbeing...plenty of studies on ties of poor dental hygiene and cardiovascular disease.

If anything I'd advocate to require health insurance companies to bundle adult dental care instead of it being a separate insurance product.

None of which has any bearing on whether dental insurance is worthwhile vs paying out of pocket.

Are you speaking as a consumer? Dental insurance is really cheap...it's like $300/year. Many employers cover all or most of this cost if you get it through a company.

If you pay 100% of your premium and have 2 regular cleanings, it's basically a payment plan.

If you require any other services (deep cleaning for example) then it would definitely be cheaper to pay for insurance than OOP.

I'm guessing you're not in the US? Here, the polices have VERY low lifetime caps. One root canal can wipe it out. Other than that, it's basically prepaying for an annual cleaning.

Yes I'm in the US. Lifetime caps are generally for ortho and implants. I've not heard of a lifetime cap on root canals but maybe this varies by insurance company.

Again, yes if you only get cleanings then it's a payment plan...from a customer POV why would you not prefer a 0% interest payment plan with added protection in case you need literally any other dental service vs paying OOP for 2 cleanings a year?

> from a customer POV why would you not prefer a 0% interest payment plan with added protection in case you need literally any other dental service vs paying OOP for 2 cleanings a year?

I also see it like retirement savings. You're more likely to forgo the expense if it hasn't already been taken out

It varies. I have calendar year maximums and some other limits but no lifetime maximum. This is US. (ADDED: Oh, right. I think there is an ortho lifetime max.)

My plan covers basic work (which includes root canals) at 80%, major work (like implants and crowns) at 50%, up to $1500/year. This is at a cost of about $350/year, so it's definitely more than just low-cost cleanings. (I can't find information on limits, but I'm not sure they apply, since I pay any amount over the 80% or $1500 a year)

The problem with major work is it's substantially more than $1,500.

A single dental implant from end to end in the US is usually in the $4,000 to $5,000 range.

Of course. Unless you get a discount for not having insurance, that's $1500 (minus annual premiums) less than you would have spent.

>A single dental implant from end to end in the US is usually in the $4,000 to $5,000 range.

Huh? It is much cheaper then that. About half that.

That includes both the surgery and the crown. A Lot of places quote $4,000 as being the average.

I'm sure you could get it cheaper if you went to a University.

Keep in mind those prices don't include additional things like extracting your original tooth, bone grafting if you happen to need it, or getting sedated (because who would want to go through that with just novocain). It can get really expensive.

If all you do is cleaning, probably not, more so if you aren't diligent about your visits. However, if you know you need work done, it is cost effective over paying full price. (many plans cover $500-$1500 of work each year, and cost an individual about $300-400/year)

That's rubbish. How do you think their business model works? They make enough to pay your procedure, plus all their overhead, plus return a profit to their shareholders - all out of your premiums.

Unless you have reason to believe you're going to require many times more procedures than the average person, it's a waste of money.

With health insurance it's very different, because if you get unlucky it could bankrupt you. A $500-$1500 dental bill is only marginally more than a years premiums, and you won't be needing to pay that every year.

It only makes sense if your employer pays it as a benefit. EDIT I missed the "if you know you need work done" part, or it was added afterward. Clearly if there's no limitations on pre-existing conditions AND no requirement that you maintain the policy for at least N years AND you know you need work done, then it may well make sense temporarily. It's just math, and you have to do the math and read all the fine print. But without that asymmetric "insider knowledge" that you need work, or that you will need substantially more work than the average, you're expected return will be negative.

bdcravens said "if you know you need work done, it is cost effective over paying full price"

and eloff tried to contradict by saying it's rubbish unless you know you need more than average.

Agreed, dental insurance tends to be more like pre-payment, but if you do the math and it works out (and there aren't limitations on pre-existing conditions!) it can be a good option even on an individual basis.

Worth noting that unlike health insurance, there's no penalty for not having insurance. Unless you're in pain, you have an idea what your procedures over the next year will look like so you could game the system (though it looks like dental policies are adjusting to that strategy, with increasing payouts or requiring you to wait 12+ months for certain kinds of work)

I'm literally talking about what I spent on dental work in 2017. (I had a private plan) Are you telling me my dentist would have given me >$1500 discount on my work if I didn't have insurance?

> A $500-$1500 dental bill is only marginally more than a years premiums

My private insurance was around $360 for 2017, and I used the full $1500 benefit (plus the regular visit/cleaning benefit); I'd call that more than marginal. But yes, if you don't use it all, it may not be worth it (similar to AppleCare, unless you're certain you'll need a screen repair or two given your normal use)

And how many years of premiums have you been paying, and expect to pay? Unless you make substantially more claims than average, you're still losing.

I do, but I get your point. So let's say you're a great patient and only ever use the cleaning/checkup benefit. Would 2 visits a year cost more than you're premium?

My gut feeling is that dental insurance companies make money because many underutilize their insurance.

I had a difficult root canal performed once and had to pay $2000 out of pocket. I had no insurance.

A friend of mine also had a root canal and also paid $2000, but they had insurance.

It's not an equal comparison as I know of dentists that you can also go to get a root canal for $500.00 without insurance but the cost to my friend with insurance seemed excessively high and makes me wonder if many dentists are just milking it.

If you had the choice between a 0% interest payment plan ($300/12 mo) for 2 cleanings with added 80-90% discounts for literally any other dental service vs paying OOP for 2 $150 cleanings with no discounts for anything else you might need the rest of the year why would you choose to pay OOP even if your employer does not pay for dental insurance?

I fail to see how this is a raw financial deal for consumers.

It primarily makes sense as a benefit to employees because they don't generally get taxed on it. But because it's much closer to pre-paying than actual insurance I'm guessing it doesn't usually make sense for individuals to buy it.

ADDED: Interesting. It doesn't seem to be that expensive for an individual to purchase. (Maybe $400 or so.) I guess the theory is that most people just end up getting a cleaning or two and caps on policies reduce the amount you can get paid back.

Dental insurance actually tends to have high "co-insurance" amounts (e.g., you pay half the cost of the crown), so consumers feel the price pressure.

Right. It also means dental insurance is pretty much the opposite of insurance that covers you against catastrophic costs.

There's general pricing transparency in dentistry. You can have rational discussions with your dentist over the relative price effectiveness and tradeoff of different approaches--as well as scheduling things based on how much you have left on FSAs and insurance.

In my experience, it's worth it if you can get it at a good price e.g. through a good employee benefit plan. Especially for a family with a couple of kids, think about paying out-of-pocket for 8 to 10 cleanings a year, plus cavities, the occasional broken tooth, etc. Regular dental care is actually pretty important, as untreated tooth decay can cause a number of other health problems.

Through an employer plan, it's usually pretty much a no brainer. I'm admittedly a bit older but I get far more out of my dental plan every year than I have to contribute through the occasional crown, etc.

So, dentists are usually something of a mom and pop kind of office. Maybe a few dentists strike a friendship in college, and form a practice together, or a professional merger occurs in a network of colleagues sometimes, but maybe not.

If you know your dentist well enough, e.g. they are family, insurance is the sole form of payment, and you might enjoy a 100% out of pocket discount. In this way, dentists still get paid for complex, specialized medical tasks on the people that know them well, and trust them implicitly.

Of course, there’s that whole thing about the hypocratic oath, that doctors are a bit more strict about, and operating on family members, separating business from family, and of course, from an accounting and auditing perspective, family discounts need to be tracked properly.

But friends of the family and family members of dentists have something closer to an insiders perspective on dental care.

Even though the limits are paltry - the negotiated prices are worth it. I had to do two tooth removals and implants and blew through my limit basically instantly but still paid less overall due to a negotiated rate.

When I lived in the states, dental insurance was always cheap. Really cheap. $5-$10 per month. I think it generally included a couple of cleanings per year and an xray, plus a discount on other sorts of things.

It isn't perfect, mind you, but it sure beats paying for dental out-of-pocket when you make $10-12/hr. It sure beat paying for wisdom tooth removal out of pocket, especially when one has to go to an oral surgeon to deal with complicated removals. And so on.

It never actually made sense to go without it because it was so cheap, more so at a low wage. It wasn't that you could afford the treatments so much, but rather that when things went horribly wrong you didn't have to be in pain so long.

I have the same insurance/tooth brushes. The thing that got me was they sent one of these for my 2 year old. Same thing as for me and my wife... they know how old the kids are ( 2, 5 and 6 ).. you think they'd "think of the children"...

This is a great counterpoint to Google's insistence that there doesn't need to be a discrete "Internet access" permission in Android.

Their position is that if apps are all well-siloed then it doesn't matter if they chat to the Cloud because they can't leak data to which you have denied them access ( contacts, photos etc )

But that's only true for on-device data; here's an app that's relaying data from a Bluetooth source. Data which the user would prefer it didn't send to the Cloud. But without rooting there's no way to stop it doing so.

Please Google, give us the ability to block Internet access.

This guy doesn't understand the difference between free 'you're the product' products and free-included-with-the-product, which is actually just the cost included with the product you bought, in this case insurance. The language he uses makes it seem as though it's OF COURSE going to be in the first category, even though it's an extra with his insurance.

If they included a not-smart electric touthbrush, would he also use 'free' in a suspicious way? No, because there wouldn't be an article because it would just be part of the insurers marketing.

Kind of annoyed me.

And that is the number one selling feature of OneStar for car manufacturers in the US (where leases are the top way to "sell" cars)

Free toothbrushes? I'm not sure I understand the point you are trying to make.

I think they are talking about OnStar, the GM product that provides in person concierge service in additional to vehicle maintenance information and crash reporting. The connection to leasing they are trying to make is likely to say, by installing OnStar they can monitor how the user drives the car. However, the math behind leasing and payments etc is known upfront. When you return the car, they don't just say "Well you owe us an extra $10,000 because you accelerate hard."

Maybe I missed something in the article, but how do you know the phone app is transmitting data to the insurance company?

I don't think you have to be very cynical to assume that's what's going on. It might not be happening now, but once the adoption rate is sufficient there's going to be a small update to the license, and the insurer will know enough to set your rates exactly right.

If the insurance company wasn't getting the data, wouldn't they have chosen a cheaper, simpler model of toothbrush?

Edit: this is from the official site: "The Beam Brush tracks usage to encourage better brushing habits amongst our members. Then, we collect that data in the aggregate so that groups receive the best possible rates on insurance premiums.

Better brushing leads to better plans and premiums for your group!"

Also, the company is pretty upfront. "Floss, toothpaste, and a beam® brush ships with all our plans directly to your doorstep." is on the homepage. You choose the toothbrush color on their website. I'm not sure what caused the second package to send, though.

Surprised to find an ad at the end of this article.

It also uses Google Analytics.

What was all that about spying on your users, again?

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