Comments on: Dentists and Orthodonists

By: sara

sara — Thu, 07 Jun 2007 00:16:15 +0000

Now I know that the sole cause of my bitterness and failures in life is the refusal of my parents to spring for braces and tooth inlays. I had (have) other health issues that were more important to finance.

I would take remarks about Baltimore with a grain of salt; the inhabitants of Greater Washington, D.C., and strangely the Baltimoreans themselves (think John Waters films), love to regard it as White Trash-ville.

By: Crooked Timber » » Heterodontics

Crooked Timber » » Heterodontics — Wed, 06 Jun 2007 10:18:57 +0000

[...] Our Harry writes: [...]

By: abb1

abb1 — Tue, 05 Jun 2007 06:17:42 +0000

Sorry, Jon. But still, your argument that Medicaid claims are more labor intensive than all the others – it needs some support; the way you presented it, I’m not buying it, sorry.

By: Jon Kay

Jon Kay — Tue, 05 Jun 2007 04:29:08 +0000

Abb said:
Are you saying that there are dental offices in the US without a PC? What do they use there Smith Corona? I want to know more about it.

Yes, I was vague about it. But that’s sniping, not engagement. You’ve twice now ignored all my main arguments and sniped at details. Bye.

By: Wild Pegasus

Wild Pegasus — Mon, 04 Jun 2007 19:33:46 +0000

My sister lived in Maryland for a while. She and I both had braces to make up for the typical wretched American diet (hunter-gatherers have straight teeth, no cavities, and white teeth, once you wipe the film off). She said that folks from Baltimore have awful teeth – white folks, black folks, rich folks, poor folks, doesn’t matter. Something in and around Baltimore wrecks dental health; that, or absolutely no one around Baltimore eats a healthy diet, which I find hard to believe.

– Josh

By: Anne Alstott

Anne Alstott — Mon, 04 Jun 2007 13:43:53 +0000

For Keith:

Perhaps this will clarify: Medicaid, which is the income-tested, non-contributory program for poor kids and adults, covers dental for kids but not adults. This is the program that nominally covered the Driver children but was priced to ensure shortage. Medicare is a paid-in social insurance program for retired and disabled workers and their dependents. I don’t know what it covers but probably not dental.

By: Barry

Barry — Mon, 04 Jun 2007 13:29:08 +0000

“We have a universal ‘welfare state’ here.
When we had a mixed economy we went from world#2 to world#5 in fifteen years.
Today most people can’t get a welfare dentist for the same reasons as in America now.
The government controls how the dentists do business with their ‘National Health’ patients, so the dentists choose not to bother.”

Posted by pietr

Um, which country is this? If it’s the UK, there are other explanations.

By: abb1

abb1 — Sun, 03 Jun 2007 21:35:23 +0000

if your office isn’t either electronicized or vast

Are you saying that there are dental offices in the US without a PC? What do they use there – Smith Corona? I want to know more about it.

By: Jon

Jon — Sun, 03 Jun 2007 20:18:46 +0000

As far as the paperwork goes, I don’t know but I seriously doubt that the medicate requires more paperwork than most private insurances; on the contrary, it has an important advantage of having one standard set of forms, as opposed to a bunch of different ones you’ll need for privately insured patient

There are just a couple of alternate standards, and they’re both vastly simpler. You pretty much can’t file Medicare/Medicaid without paying more for the labor involved than you can hope to get for your efforts, if your office isn’t either electronicized or vast. Smaller, older offices are noticeably likelier to not take Medicare. But even electronicized, newer offices have higher operational costs because you have to enter more information, worry more about what they’ll do, and pay alot more for the software, because it’s hard to code.

By: Matt

Matt — Sun, 03 Jun 2007 20:05:04 +0000

“my parents took me to an orthodontist to get rid of the gap and the result hasn’t changed since. [pic]”

Showoff!

By: pietr

pietr — Sun, 03 Jun 2007 19:52:29 +0000

We have a universal ‘welfare state’ here.
When we had a mixed economy we went from world#2 to world#5 in fifteen years.
Today most people can’t get a welfare dentist for the same reasons as in America now.
The government controls how the dentists do business with their ‘National Health’ patients, so the dentists choose not to bother.

By: T. Gracchus

T. Gracchus — Sun, 03 Jun 2007 19:15:16 +0000

There is a more important issue here, missed by the commentators and by the post itself. Lack of dental care leads to a good worse than toothaches—it has positive correlation with a wide range of other health issues. Providing dental care is one of the easier and cheaper ways of making significant improvements in overall health of a population. Think nutrition.

By: Eszter

Eszter — Sun, 03 Jun 2007 16:26:54 +0000

When I was little, I had such a big gap between my two front teeth that you could fit an additional tooth in there. (I wouldn’t believe this now, but my father has the foresight to take a picture so we have evidence.) I can’t imagine how that would’ve been comfortable throughout my life. We had free dental care in Hungary so my parents took me to an orthodontist to get rid of the gap and the result hasn’t changed since. [pic] The braces I had were what are here, in the U.S., called retainers. I only had to wear them during the night. I don’t have any bad memories of it.

What I never understood is that given free dental care, why so many Hungarians didn’t get their teeth fixed. But I guess the message above is that certain levels of crookedness and gaps doesn’t matter. I don’t know enough about teeth to know to what extent that’s true.

Like Britta, we also went to the dentist together as a class every year when I was in elementary school so even if your parents didn’t take you, you did at least get an annual check-up.

By: Georgiana

Georgiana — Sun, 03 Jun 2007 06:24:02 +0000

I don’t think straight, bleached white teeth, the American look is all that important. But as to the benefits of orthodontia, one anecdote in support thereof: I inherited my mother’s small jaw. She has all teeth, including wisdom, packed in so tightly she can barely floss between some. Despite lots of care and maintenance, she had several crowns, cavities and root canals by my age (40). I went through the braces, wisdom tooth removal etc. And, have so far avoided anything other than routine cleanings. My guess is remedying the bad hand genetics handed me made a significant difference. And no, my teeth no longer are perfectly straight.

By: Nick Caldwell

Nick Caldwell — Sun, 03 Jun 2007 01:10:58 +0000

Americans obsess about British teeth because dental health is an important—if subliminal—status and class signifier in the US. Nice, middle class people with bad teeth are sending distorted signals, which causes anxiety, which leads to anxiety management in the form of tired old jokes.