Dentists and Sicko

Ed the Editor's personal blog corner

After a trip to the dentist and a trip to the movies to see "Sicko", I have to say I am feeling a little sorry for myself. My teeth hurt, my wallet aches and my heart bleeds for the American population living a total health care nightmare and scam.

In the scheme of things, $1200 isn't a lot for my dental treatment. At $1 per month for 100 hundred years, the work will ensure my teeth stay in my head for a few more years. I am happy, I guess, and Mrs Ed is thrilled, because now she won't be gummed to death any time soon in a fit of passion. But whereas I am happy to defray the costs over a century, the dentist keeps on charging $300 for every hour of his time crouched over my, and every other patient's gaping mouth.

Doubly screwed without insurance

This is where my trip to Sicko made sense of the immoral scenario I was faced with at the dentist. I pay $1200 without cover, but if I'd had cover, the dentist would receive maybe $500 for the work, because that is the ceiling the insurance companies have placed on the procedure. I subsidise the privileged. Cool, innit.

But what do you do? Go without dental treatment? Yeah right! If there is one ache even numb nuts Ed can't abide, it is tooth-related agony. Bottom line, you have to go see a dental guy, and live by the rules.

Break the cycle?

Is there an alternative to rolling over to exorbitant bills or slavery to a job offering free dental health care? Actually, there is an alternative in America. Ed will tie a string round your tooth and yank like hell when you least expect it. Also you could wait in line for some up-and-coming dental student to find a spot in their training schedule to practice on you. Oh the irony of being a guinea pig to yet another up-and-coming health "care" professional investing a fortune so they can perpetuate the gold mine that is the private health care system.

Maybe you think the current rules are acceptable and fair. You know, why should you pay for some other person's health care?

Is it sicko everywhere?

A set of teeth in America belong to a bottomless gougable wallet, not to a fellow human being in need. It doesn't seem to be like that anywhere else. Time and again, Michael Moore's bias came down on the side of health care professionals around the world, where, for some baffling reason, doctors and dentists, by and large put their patients' well-being ahead of accountants' demands. American ex-pats in socialist France were embarrassed to have such freely available health care, while family back home lived the American dream. In the UK, doctors even get a bonus for stopping people smoking, losing weight... And they don't rely on the bonuses to make ends meet. They earn good money, great money in fact under socialised medicine, just not as much money as US doctors.

In the US, socialised medicine has been demonised, but it isn't all glamor for dentists under the current private system! Poor saps have to maintain $2m dollar homes and service 5 cars. All that paperwork and admin, what a bind. And I expect most dentists feel a bit of a dick wearing latex gloves and a goofy green suit while people at normal jobs get to dress up a bit. And all that tax to pay.

I don't deny dentists are valued members of society, but when you analyse the importance of the service being administered to fellow men in need, the practices going on in dentistry across America is legalised gouging. Not much to shout about in a civilised society.

And after Sicko, one of Moore's least biased shows, US health care is not a good reflection of a society that has it right in so many ways. Regardless of what fit young professionals like to believe, when you haven't got your health, or your teeth, you haven't got much. And if you live in a system where you can't afford to access the skills of people who can keep you healthy, (or your HMO blocks you from treatment even when you have paid for insurance) then whatever you have accumulated in material terms is completely worthless. Pretty much only America makes you pay through the nose for your health, one way or another, potentially for your whole miserable life.

What do you think?