Torture: Dental Disregard

Now, don’t make the mistake of thinking I’m about to tell you how important it is you take good care of your teeth. You already know that. No, I’m referring to the total disregard most dentists have for poor people.

First, let’s make sure you understand, in my vast travels in life, I’ve met only three dentists (that’s about 10%) who actually like people. You can tell. There’s that one Army Reservist whom I drew during one of those random appointments the US Army clinics typically process. At a regular base, even if you have a big mouth full of dental work done, you still aren’t likely to see the same dentist twice. This one time I ran across a reservist, and the fellow had taken the time to learn and become expert at stimulating the gums with a rounded implement so he didn’t need topical anesthesia. He gave injections you never felt. He was also very careful during the work, so you never felt any jerks, etc.

I ran into another who was handed my entire VA catchup file. The Army never did finish all that work, so the VA contracted a fellow I found who was willing to eat the loss, since the VA never pays the going rate. He did great work and most of it still holds today, some 20 years later.

The third guy was an okay dentist technically, but he was the only one who understood some of his patients weren’t made of money. You see, I had all that work done in the Army because I was poor most of my life. Then the VA paid and the guy didn’t hit me for the extra. The last one understood even better. He never demanded I accept all that extra office time and all those extra charges. He did an extraction and it was cheap. No other care, no pressure on me, just pay for that one quick job. I could afford it, just barely. I don’t live anywhere near his office now.

Since then, I’ve been out of luck. Oh, I’ve got some work needs doing, but I can’t possibly pay anyone. That’s because the minimum charge is something in the range of $200 before any work gets done. Talk to me all you want about expertise and being thorough, but I can’t afford it. Since they have to charge that much before they see me, they’ll never see me.

All this bull-hockey about “never do it yourself” and “you must leave it to experts” comes with the assumption you are a filthy liar about being poor. They might as well just put it in writing — “If you aren’t rich, you are lying scum.” I’m going to end up pulling this broken tooth myself. And if anyone dares to post anything online which resembles useful do-it-yourself instructions, some professional dental association will sue them into oblivion.

It’s all about money, and the crap about “patient care” is just a lever to open your wallet. If it happens to be genuinely empty, you’ll just have bad teeth and die.

Oh, and don’t even try to talk about government paying for it. The primary reason it costs so much now is so-called managed care plans, or “health insurance.” If I wanted to wait until I died of sepsis, I’d ask for a system of gov’t funded health care like the UK has. The main reason dentists charge that much is because it costs them that much to run a clinic with all that regulation and interference. I’m blaming all the do-gooders who can’t be bothered to notice new laws about medicine guarantees — without fail — to screw poor folks. It has never worked; never will. People who suggest such nonsense are the reason I call it “torture.”