This Is Why Dental Insurance Should Be Abolished....

IOW, dental care should be included as part of normal health care, not separate.

is there anything about unified health + dental insurance (as opposed to separate dental insurance) that would have encouraged the dentist not to try to save money by using paper clips?

The last time I checked my teeth are connected to my body.

Oral care should be covered under standard medical insurance as if it were your heart or fingers or foot.

I have never understood this. Same thing goes for vision.

Yes, dentistry is a specialized field. So is OB/GYN, cardiology, neuroscience, etc. Yet women aren't required to purchase separate OB/GYN insurance, and so forth.

Last time I checked, the mouth and eyes were part of the human body, why should they be covered separately? As the OP points out, dental problems can cause serious health problems.

As such I could understand their complete removal for other health reasons but not their repair or replacement.

There are plenty of ways one can neglect their body - poor diet, smoking, etc.

they wouldn't be neglected.

Smoking-related illnesses are routinedly covered, even though smoking is an actively unhealthful behavior. Many problems with dental health begin when the patients are minors and have no "dental" insurance even though they may have "health" insurance.

There is limited cover. Children get free treatment anyway. Adults get 6 month checkups for c. £16, fillings and crowns are subsidised as are extractions.

Since "we" have nothing here. . . . .

what you've got is compared with what we get - hence the mention.

just because of the occasionally fraudulent practices of a few dentists? Do you think doctors never abuse medical insurance?

Dental insurance is a very good thing to have. I don't necessarily agree that it should be merged into ordinary medical insurance. As stand-alone insurance it's usually fairly inexpensive and the deductibles are manageable, and as such people are more likely to buy it - which means they are more likely to get their routine dental problems taken care of. If it were part of the typical (that is, high deductible) medical coverage, I think people would be inclined to put off having dental work done.

The down side of typical dental coverage is that you can run through it pretty fast if you have to have a lot of work done in one year.

The obvious solution, of course, is comprehensive single-payer coverage that takes care of everything.

Obviously there are unscrupulous ones, just as there are anywhere else. Corporate dentists have quotas to fulfill, so you have a greater chance to encounter unnecessary services with them.

This article suggests it's maybe Medicare insurance, which doesn't pay great. Dentist, like other doctors, don't always accept Medicare (preaching to the choir, etc.).

Which is sort of repeating the point of the OP. Medicare should and does not include dental work.

for example:

All Dentistry Specialties
Show only those providers who accept the Medicare-approved amount as payment in full.
16 Dentistry Physicians within 20 miles of 21244

Accepts Medicare-approved amount on all claims
This provider accepts the Medicare-approved amount as full payment for covered services.

http://www.medicare.gov/find-a-doctor/provider-results.aspx?loc=21244&specgrp=Dentistry&specids=&pref=Yes&ptype=PHP&gender=Unknown&dist=20&lat=39.33635&lng=-76.76828

Hearing exams. Any exam having to do with the functioning/malfunctioning of the various body parts.
Notice all these are in the easy to locate head. The brain of which malfunction symptoms are also often treated separately.

Neck down, medical. Neck up, farmed out to highest bidder.

If it were, I might not be missing 5 teeth. If I hadn't married 5 years ago (which put me on my husbands dental insurance), I'd surely have fewer left.

Equal rights for equal teeth!!!!!

If I'd married someone without dental insurance, I'd be in the same shape I was before, though

As we're flailing at the most absurdly tenuous connections here, why not simply abolish dentistry as whole-- then we can be guaranteed no dentist will ever do that again.

Or we can tilt at the windmills behind us, and demand that haircuts are covered by insurance too-- you see-- hair is connected to my body...

(Bong water is nasty, nasty stuff...)

Why are you opposed to having dental work included with other health issues under the same insurance policy?

And the day that hair that is not cut can cause other major health problems, maybe we should have the discussion about covering haircuts. Until then, you are going nowhere with that argument.

- dental insurance, health insurance, or cash-on-the-barrel head. How payment is received does not impact the ability, knowledge, ethics or morals of a doctor. They either have them or they don't.