HEAlth insurance

More over- those with poor childhood habits and or parents who don’t teach or enforce good dental health, can inherit problems that were created when they were children and not even legally or mentally capable of assuming responsibility or informed awareness of the actually long term consequences. These people can become adults facing dental bills that rival the cost of an education.

Dental cosmetics and health have impacts on how we are perceived by others and what opportunities are available to us in our careers and personal lives- and often in ways that aren’t completely obvious. In addition to to degradation that can be caused by loss of the jaw bone and changes to speech and appearance as well as fragility of the jaw and susceptibility to injury, the types of food one can eat, there’s also the fact that long term tooth issues can cause heart problems, heart disease/attacks, aneurisms, sepsis, and can kill you several ways. Hence why one of the only fee or low cost options available to those with severe issues is the removal of teeth and that is not advisable if there is any way to save a tooth.

Dentures are also very expensive and the jaw bone will degrade which doesn’t just cause the problems of a weak jaw, but also means that you will need to have new dentures made as the old ones become to big for your shrinking bone mass- making dentures a recurring expense. However standard insurance often doesn’t cover these costs or only covers a very small amount or a lifetime maximum that is far below the likely true cost that will be incurred in ones life.

So I think the point isn’t that dentistry should be free- but that we should treat it more seriously and as bad as the medical establishment in the US is- the dental industry gets even less attention and less emphasis on making sure people can afford care. If you’ve done things “right” in life and have been fortunate enough to not face any or many chance set backs- you wouldn’t need any insurance to begin with. People who are already in good shape don’t generally need help, it’s people who aren’t in good shape who need help.

Legislation and medical insurance and the like is intended to protect people and ensure that you can get the care you need without becoming a financial wreck. It also protects public and private funds from the higher costs of deferred care. It’s cheaper to subsidize a root canal and more humane than to wait until the tooth rots out and then be legally bound to treat a heart condition. It’s better for everyone to try and keep people’s teeth healthy and avoid the costs of dentures as well.

America has some of the worst teeth of any developed nation. Pretty yes- but we have more rotten teeth per capita than any other developed nation. It’s a hidden epidemic which not only has larger monetary costs but severely impacts the health and well being of many Americans, but it doesn’t get discussed much or at all. So somewhere between “communist dentistry” or “enslaved dentists” and “sorry Timmy- you had shot parents so now you need to shell out $10k for dental implants or get your teeth pulled and get fakes and deal with the health and lifestyle changes of that because yeah- you have insurance, but it doesn’t even cover 1/10th of the cost... oh. And if you can’t afford that they’ll just rot until you end up needing $100k+ in medical bills that if you can’t pay will get absorbed by the system and drive up cost to everyone else anyway.”

A stitch in time saves 9. It’s better to mitigate a problem in most cases than to deal with larger fallout as it develops over time. Ford knew the pinto design was potentially dangerous and their lawyers said it would be $12 million to fix and $10 million in lawsuits to not fix. They didn’t fix it and it cost them over $110 million in legal expenses. That’s leaving out the personal suffering of those effected, and the harm it did to their brand. America has choices and we can fix the problem now or later, we get to decide how much it’s going to cost and I’d prefer we fix it for less- because either way we end up paying even if it isn’t our fault.” Doesn’t matter. We still will end up footing the bill one way or another.