When Basic Care Is A Luxury

By: Seth Doane
Topics: Field Notes

(CBS)

Seth Doane is a CBS News correspondent based in New York.

I've wanted to work on a story about dental care in the United States for a number of months, because so many Americans simply can't afford it. The issue has a direct correlation to one's ability to get work. If you're missing teeth, it can be hard to get a job – thus impossible to be insured. It's all a vicious cycle.

I started doing research around the beginning of the year and was surprised to learn just how many Americans live in "dental shortage areas," where there are simply not enough dentists to fill the need. As the economy makes everyday life more difficult, even where there are enough dentists, it's getting tougher for people to afford care. Even "basic" services are becoming a luxury for many.

For months I've been chatting with a woman in Frederick, Md., who runs a mobile dental clinic there (called Mission of Mercy) and she introduced me to Bruce Bergstrom who is the executive director a group called CBS Evening News piece. Cindy Rogers is a mother who works in a local sandwich shop but doesn't have dental insurance. Cindy says she and her family are caught in the middle: "We don't make enough to buy medical insurance, and we make too much to get state help," she said.

About 800 volunteers help put this together, along with aide from America's Dentists Care Foundation and state dental associations (like the association in Colorado that raised money to put on this program). More than 100 dentists volunteer their skill to help provide care that would otherwise be out of reach – fillings, cleanings, extractions, and root canals among them. To see all of these people come together to fill a need is remarkable.

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by kiddle55-2009 July 25, 2008 9:40 PM EDT: What is really bad is I am a retired miliary dependent and they provede up to $1200 per year. The premiums keep going up $34 a month, but not the coverage. $1200 will cover one crown with a root canel and I have to the other half. So much for the government looking out for our us and our parents who gave their life for their counry.
Linda; Reply to this comment


by wrg21230 July 24, 2008 12:32 PM EDT: I have to laugh at the notion that Congress MUST do more for its constituents. Government has NO MEANS to do anything, it can only confiscate "means" from the productive among us. We might as well station an armed federal agent at the exit of every workplace to forcibly steal 30+% of every working man/woman''s daily wage. There would be a revolt, but government gets away with it by pre-paycheck withholding, and by forcing employers/retailers to be their disguised tax collectors. Karl Marx said "to each according to his need" and that''s where such soft headed thoughts are guiding us. Can''t wait to see that in action, since it''s been so effective in the many failed totalitarian states in which it''s been tried! I would suggest that such "social engineers" simply read the Constitution. It''s theft by majority vote- any of us would be imprisoned for such a crime if committed individually. Have it put it to a vote and commit it collectively, and people roll over like a weakling faced with a bully. "Tyranny by many" is much MORE repulsive as "tyranny by one", because it thrives only by collective societal weakness. Ask yourself - if an armed mob came to your front door tonight demanding your money to pay for whatever social changes it thought desirable, would you meekly hand it over? Government is that mob.; Reply to this comment


by nyscof July 24, 2008 11:40 AM EDT: The American Dental Association has one of the largest health related Political Action Committees in the US and they get their money%u2019s worth.

The ADA and the Alaska Dental Association sued, unsuccessfully at a cost of $1 million, Dental Health Aide Therapists - two year trained individuals who fix teeth in rural Alaska - where dentists refuse to go.

The ADA spends a lot of money and political capital lobbying for fluoridation and against DHAT''s and any group that dares infringe on its lucrative monopoly - no matter how many Americans have to die from untreated tooth decay.

Fluoridation campaigns give the illusion that dentists are doing something about the extremely bad dental health of low income Americans but they won''t actually allow them to sit in their dental chairs.

Organized dentistry also lobbies against denturists - people who make dentures and work directly with the patient and not needing the dentist as an expensive middle man.

Organized dentistry also lobbies against expanded responsibilities for dental hygienists which would allow them to go to schools , nursing homes, etc. to do cleanings and referrals.

Dentists didn''t make it on their own. Their schools and tuition is gov''t subsidized. Their licenses are issued by state governments. Their profession is subsidized by corporations that profit from tooth decay.

Dentists receive welfare for the rich In return they must be required to treat more Medicaid patients and others on a sliding scale or for free.; Reply to this comment


by kansas66839 July 24, 2008 12:49 AM EDT: Please visit the America''s Dentists Care Foundation website at www.adcfmom.org for information and resources about other state Mission of Mercy events and volunteer opportunities.; Reply to this comment