Why is dental insurance so lousy?
There’s no actuarially insurable risk in dentistry. Any employer dental plan is basically just pay in a different pay-packet, with added administrative costs. Contra orthogonality, I’ve never seen the bulk purchase discounts ever outweight the administrative burden. The best solution is simply to have a larger pre-tax medical deduction which one can partially ear-mark for dental needs, with a loan program for the rare expensive procedure. (Smart dentists often make good money from their participation in consumer credit programs which fund root canals and implants and the like.
