"Poor teeth"

[handmade34]

Poor teeth, I knew, beget not just shame but more poorness: people with bad teeth have a harder time getting jobs and other opportunities. People without jobs are poor. Poor people can’t access dentistry – and so goes the cycle....
"The Shame of Poor Teeth in a Rich World"

http://aeon.co/magazine/health/the-shame-of-poor-teeth-in-a-rich-world/?utm_source=Aeon+newsletter&utm_campaign=744e77fcb2-Daily_Newsletter_23_Oct_201410_23_2014&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_411a82e59d-744e77fcb2-68622033

In the past year, the Affordable Care Act, or ‘ObamaCare’, has changed many lives for the better – mine included. But its omission of dental coverage, a result of political compromise, is a dangerous, absurd compartmentalisation of health care, as though teeth are apart from and less important than the rest of the body...

Upper-class supremacy is nothing new. A hundred years ago, the US Eugenics Records Office not only targeted racial minorities but ‘sought to demonstrate scientifically that large numbers of rural poor whites were genetic defectives’, as the sociologist Matt Wray explains in his book Not Quite White: White Trash and the Boundaries of Whiteness (2006). The historian and civil rights activist W E B du Bois, an African American, wrote in his autobiography Dusk of Dawn (1940) that, growing up in Massachusetts in the 1870s, ‘the racial angle was more clearly defined against the Irish than against me. It was a matter of income and ancestry more than colour’. Martin Luther King, Jr made similar observations and was organizing a poor-people’s march on Washington at the time of his murder in 1968...

[Scuba]

1. Dental health is critical to overall health. Thanks handmade34.

[JustAnotherGen]

3. +1

It's more than just 'cosmetic'. Our teeth tell us a great deal about the rest of our bodies.

It's how I know I'm getting a sinus infection. My teeth.

[Fumesucker]

2. Eh, posters make fun of toothless hillbillies right here on DU

And then moan that those toothless hillbillies don't vote like the moaners think they should.

[theHandpuppet]

5. Do you mean remarks such as this one?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=5703364

Just harmless fun, or so I've been told.

[Fumesucker]

7. I missed that one..

But I've heard it before.

[appalachiablue]

13. Correct unfortunately

[NYC_SKP]

4. For about 10% extra, I was able to add dental and vision. I don't see the problem.

Naturally, I'd prefer it be included, but if it was it would still cost about 10% more.

I'd prefer single payer, too, but it's not happening this year.

Right now I save enough each month compared to my COBRA monthly payment to buy a house.

Literally, about $800/month.

[Ino]

6. Here's the problem...

You are able to save $800/month that you were spending before. You actually had $800 EXTRA to spend on COBRA, though it may have been a hardship.

Some people don't even EARN $800/month, much less have $800 over & above living expenses.

Some people didn't have ANY health insurance before, because they couldn't afford any. So they are not saving anything by having Obamacare, even if it's 100% subsidized. So that extra 10% is truly an extra unaffordable expense, not just a pittance compared to what they were spending before.

Add to that the dental insurance stipulations that it won't cover any major work (like a root canal, crown) until you've been paying in for a year, and the high deductibles/copays... and the poor person can't afford to go to the dentist even if they can afford the premium.

[theHandpuppet]

9. In some parts of the country, access is also a major problem

Having health insurance is terrific but if there's a lack of doctors, nurses, dentists, hospitals and clinics, insurance won't help you much. Many of the people who would most benefit from having insurance are the least likely to be able to use it.

[NYC_SKP]

10. In my state, if they earn that little then they pay no premium. Medi-Cal & Denti-Cal

I'm sorry that my post sounded dismissive, and it's unfortunate that some of the states voted not to fully participate.

We'd all like "free healthcare and dental", and to a degree, those who most need the assistance have it.

It's not platinum coverage, not even silver, but in California for those eligible, it's pretty fucking good and it's free.

And it's not unlimited, but then neither is paid-for private insurance except for executives and the 1%.

My point is that we are closer to the goal than we were.

Here's what California offers, for free, for those without means:

http://www.denti-cal.ca.gov/WSI/Default.jsp?fname=Default

[handmade34]

11. ...

"those who most need the assistance have it..." that may be true for health care... not dental care so much

[WhiteTara]

8. Great post. Thanks. It is true that teeth should be included in health care along

with eye care. We are a whole body and should be able to care for the whole, including our mental health.

[undergroundpanther]

12. If you are disabled

And happen to be an adult ,noo noo dental care for you,hell the medicaid cab wont even DRIVE you to a dentist. They want the poor,disabled to die off . The richie pigs hate us,and I dispise them right back.None of us asked to be born,or to be disabled,yet we are made poor,denied dental care. Why is being disabled mean being poor and deprived of means to exist.I get foodstamps but nowadays a good amoount of ssi goes to cover food now food prices have gone insane high.