Did you hear the one about the British dental patient who, using a pair of pliers, removed fourteen of his own teeth? He would have kept going, but the Tooth Fairy made him stop…
The extractions were no joke, just the most sensational tidbit in yet another story about problems with socialized medicine, this time involving a shortage of government-paid dentists in merry old England. We’ve heard the predictable details before, but they bear repeating because every Democratic presidential hopeful is touting some form of universal health insurance, and Average Americans may be enticed by the prospect of "free" medical care.
Foreseeable feature #1: The high cost of government subsidized dentistry. A "free" service, be it dentistry or carpentry, always results in brisk business. For those of you in West Palm Beach, that means British citizens were availing themselves of government-paid dentists at a rate exceeding what social planners anticipated, as surprising as that may seem.
Foreseeable feature #2: The befuddled experts, no doubt drawing on decades of government thinking, decided the best solution to curb runaway costs was to pay the dentists less money.
Foreseeable feature #3: A large percentage of National Health Service (NHS) dentists, 45% of those surveyed, decided they would no longer accept NHS patients. Additional Doctors of Dentistry simply cut back on the number of NHS patients they accept.
Foreseeable feature #4: Two million Brits can’t even find an NHS dentist, while millions more must endure longer waits before receiving care. Intriguing particulars include these knee-weakening morsels: "6% of patients have resorted to self-treatment," including the intrepid self-extractor who is down to a maximum of eighteen teeth, and "patients [who] reported using super glue on crowns after they popped off," according to the Associated Press. Even for me, this is taking self-reliance a bit too far.
The saddest paragraph in the entire AP piece contains this thinly veiled warning: "Though private treatment by dentists is available, the tradition of public funded care means most people rely on it." Dependence on government, with all its debilitating effects, surely is the steepest price to pay for "free" anything.
Those considering the virtues of an American brand of socialized medicine could learn a thing or two from the British experience. In order to control inevitably excessive costs of public funded care, planners really have but one choice — reduce the amount of care provided. In the case at hand, this was achieved by paying dentists so little they wouldn’t do the work. Limiting the number of doctor/dentist visits per year achieves the same goal, unavoidably resulting in poorer overall service. Self-treatment is an option of sorts for courageous dental patients, but cancer, heart, and other critical illness sufferers find themselves at the mercy of a bureaucracy. Many Americans who harshly criticize our government’s handing of Katrina recovery, the War on Terror, and a host of other failings nevertheless want the same government to control their health care, a conundrum of monumental proportions. We can only say, "Wake up!"
Posted by Jerry Pomeroy in Health Insurance Debate