I have been beside myself the last 2 days. I have found out, accidentally, that a friend of mine, who works 40+ hours per week in a union job, and whose husband works 60 hours per week, does not have any dental insurance. Now, I know that this may not seem like a big deal, because many people don't have basic health insurance. And I know people die because of the lack of health insurance, and people don't generally die of tooth loss. But I never realized that people who work hard, and belong to a union, would have to get teeth pulled because they cannot afford the $1000 root canal.
I just can't.
Maybe this should have gone into an open thread, but the issue is so important to so many, and so upsetting to me, that I wanted to write more about it.
I want to ask: what can we do? How can we make our representatives, many of whom get big bucks from the insurance industry, and the health care industry, to give a damn about a 45 year old woman who is going to lose her second tooth because of finances? At this rate, she will have no teeth by the time she is 65 - and dentures will eventually cost Medicare a lot more than just taking care of her teeth now. And I know that she is losing them because she cannot afford regular dental check-ups. I just can't understand it: the hypocrisy of the wealthiest nation on earth, the most compassionate one, and we don't take care of our citizens bodies and teeth.
Times like this make me want to go work in government, to go fight for those who don't have the tools to fight for themselves, and try to get our citizens some basic rights. Any suggestions - I'm listening.