Unaffordable Dentistry.

It would (of course) be a crime against humanity if calling the Fire brigade to your house fire cost you thousands of dollars.

Vital "Essential Services" should NEVER be priced beyond the capacity of a even a few percent of the population!
Without very affordable Vital Services, people will die unnecessarily!

Many people suffer greatly, and many people actually die from unaffordable Health care costs..

From Harvard Medical: One person dies every 12 min (45,000 deaths annually) from unaffordable 'Health Care costs.
Health Care is a huge topic - lets just consider Dental care..

From ABC News:
U.S. Surgeon General found that over 100 million Americans had no dental insurance.
Dr. Irvin Silverstein: (University of California at San Diego) "The problems are not just cosmetic. Many people die from dental disease."
"When people are unemployed or don't have insurance, where do they go? What do they do?" Silverstein said. "People end up dying from the most treatable diseases in the world."

Quote from PBS: "More than 100 million Americans don’t go to the dentist because they can’t afford it. Many end up in severe pain and sometimes they even die!"

Dental disease is an epidemic. Ninety percent of the population suffers from some form of this disease. Between 30 and 50 percent of the population have the most serious forms of dental disease. (Dr. Tom McGuire, a leading author on dental health.)

Dr. Jirjis, director of medicine at Vanderbilt University, said "These people without access to care often die of conditions that were much more common decades ago."
"They might as well have been living in 1927. All of the advances we've made in medicine since then are priced well beyond their reach!"

"People want to believe there's a safety net that catches all of these people, and there isn't," said Dr. Glenn Stream, president-elect of the American Academy of Family Physicians.

Collusion?

If Freight company AA increased its charges by 300%, and Freight company BB also increased its charges by 300%, they would both go to jail for collusion and price fixing!
Dentists ALL set their charge rates about 300% higher than the "DenCom reasonable rate" and government thinks that is fine!
US Dentists complain bitterly that MedicAid (US Government) reimburses them only a third of their normal 'charge rate'.

How does the US Government determine the 'DenCom reasonable rate'?
Very Simple..
The US Governments 'DenCom' corp. is the biggest provider of Dental Services on earth! ("DenCom" provides Dental Services to the US Armed Forces) (over 50 million teeth). DenCom knows exactly what dental actually costs!
DenCom pays good wages to its dentists and can still do a small filling for $33! Thus, MedicAid reimburses private dentists $35 for a small filling. (These dentists usually charge $150 - Four times that 'cost' amount!)
DenCom is not unrealistic.. In most non-lobbyist countries, $35us is the average price for a small filling.

Overseas Dental Holidays..
There are dozens of countries and many foreign Tourist destinations where the 'savings' on getting a few teeth repaired will pay for the return flight and acomodation!
These Dental Destinations have US or OZ trained & certified dentists; They have better equipment than most US dentists; There are thousands of glowing testimonials from US folk who had no chance of affording local dental work. Some related web-sites..
www.DentalDepartures.com; www.DentalHoliday.co.uk; www.MedicalHolidaysAbroad.com

How do US, OZ & UK dentists justify their "life threatening" prices?

* The high cost of dental colleges.. Most dental graduates in the US face college debts in excess of $300,000! The colleges use the $500 per hour that dentists "make" to justify those immoral charges. (Two wrongs make a right?)

* The middle-men of dental component supply also charge 10 to 30 times the "reasonable prices" - They use the same $500 per hour justification!
This author was once the 'Financial Database manager' for a monster Dental Supply company. The 'mark-ups' were truly obscene and highly classified. Only a few folk in the massive corporation had access to "markup" figures.

* Dentists quote the high National "Average Wage" (over $50,000) - and claim that most people should be able to afford their care..
But, according to Social Security tax records..
50 percent of US wage earners make less than $27,000 a year! So, how can the average wage be over $50,000 when about 70% earn less than that "average"! The anomaly comes from the insane amount the top one percent takes!

Why don't politicians acknowledge the public outrage?

The whole world understands the power of lobby groups like the N.R.A. (Nat. Rifle Assoc.) We all know that individual politicians might support "gun control", but are hopelessly overwhelmed by the control that "Big Rifle" has in the 'party caucus'.
We all know that (in the US) election & re-election costs are close to billions of dollars! BOTH major parties are hopelessly dependent on the "Mr. Bigs" (Big Oil, Big Pharma, Big Bank, Big Rifle etc.)
"Big Rifle" is a monster, but "Big Medical" pays both political parties eight times more than "Big Rifle". For legal reasons, we hereby refuse to imply that "Big Medical" has any influence on what is "not noticed" by US Lawmakers. (A great quote from a movie states: "My God man, what are you implying? This is not Russia! This is the USA!")

1968 Quote from John Danforth, Missouri Attorney General..
"Deep down in our hearts, we (senators realize that we) have been accomplices in doing something terrible and unforgivable to our wonderful country.
We realize that we have .. defrauded our country to get ourselves elected."

(a work in progress)..