Teeth in the US For Those Who Can Afford Them—No Matter Your Politics

This week has been an incredibly wild ride for politics in the United States. One former president is targeted by an assassin’s bullet, and one soon-to-be former president drops out of his campaign for reelection. History is unfolding, and fear about the future is rising.

One constant certainty for every person residing in the U.S. of the free and the brave is the extraordinary profits made by health insurance corporations and the providers who deny care to millions of Americans who don’t present themselves with enough coverage or cash to afford needed care.

Dental care access is one of the most vivid and disgusting examples of the profit-first motivations of the health and wealth care Americans seem to accept without much of a fight. Dental insurance is a highly consolidated segment of the industry, and dental care providers charge more than most people can afford out of pocket for dental health services. Credit companies have developed specific programs for dental costs that mirror our pet care and insurance options through collusion with dental providers and dental insurance plans, and patients (or consumers) who qualify for those credit plans are urged to pay often high interest rates to “charge” their care when cash is short.

When we all come together to demand that our mouths, our ears, our eyes, and our mental health is a part of the coverage we all pay for (whether through private insurance or taxes that pay Medicare and Medicaid benefits), we might just see our similarities as our power and our way out of so much division.

My dental journey is no different than so many millions of other people, and it makes me more angry and less hopeful every time I feel any need to see a dentist. I’ve always carried dental insurance, and I’ve gone years sometimes without seeing dentists while coverage premiums were dutifully paid each month. As I near my 70th birthday this year, I don’t understand why I don’t have many teeth left. Yes, of course, I do know the specifics of each decision to pull a tooth rather than do the root canal and crown treatment often recommended when one of my teeth was sick. That’s easy to trace and see how daily expenses and raising children won out over shelling out thousands for my own dental care. Yet in my heart, I’m confused about the whole mess.

Why isn’t it fraudulent to sell dental insurance that effectively cannot be used because benefits are too low in comparison to overall costs? And why should an insured woman like me lose all but eight of her natural teeth to a lack of money? Last week, I tried to distract myself with the bigger news in play while six more of my teeth were extracted at the local dental school. When I saw my teeth laid out on the tray, I wanted to apologize somehow to my late father who paid so much for my orthodonture and the cap on the front tooth knocked out by a “steelie” marble just after I got my permanent front teeth. I also thought about the flipper and the bridge I financed beyond my Delta Dental benefits allotment after an abusive partner long ago decided I needed a punch in the mouth to silence me. Why did I bother? And why was I now feeling so guilty for being unable to protect my own overall health—which, for me and most humans, includes oral health?

With no answers to my own questions, I do wonder why the health insurance companies allow so much care to go undelivered for so many millions of people they then must cover for oral health related illness. Of course it relates to the bottom line, I know. But then my larger questions for my fellow humans with teeth and eyes and ears and brains that sometimes need dental healthcare is how do we as neighbors, friends, relatives, and co-workers accept a system that denies us needed care for which we carry insurance?

Whether a MAGA devotee, a far-left liberal, a middle-of-the-road person without strongly held political leanings, our bodies need our attention and sometimes need the attention of trained professionals. Why do we allow ourselves to be separated from our shared humanness? The intentionality of the health insurance industry, the dental insurance cabal, the financial services industry, and the providers to make profits ever higher ought to draw us all together in a common struggle—and a common goal.

We must work more intentionally together to disrupt the collusion of the medical-financial-industrial complex we call a healthcare system. We must educate one another about the rip-offs we share and stop taking the blame for being human with teeth that need care despite flossing, brushing, and all the over-the-counter products we use to try to keep them healthy. We must stop allowing children and their parents and grandparents to die from cavities and dental injuries that could be simply treated. We must hold the dental insurance industry liable for collecting premiums for years full well knowing that patients cannot afford the costs after benefits are determined.

As for me, I have four teeth left on top and four teeth left on the bottom. All the rest have now been pulled. God willing (and apparently prayer is not enough for most of us), I will be able to find a way to cover the almost $2,000 after benefits necessary to have partial dentures. It’s humiliating and scary to think I must fundraise for teeth. When we all come together to demand that our mouths, our ears, our eyes, and our mental health is a part of the coverage we all pay for (whether through private insurance or taxes that pay Medicare and Medicaid benefits), we might just see our similarities as our power and our way out of so much division. Let’s hold each other accountable for our collective well-being. The rich are doing just fine doing just that while our teeth are pulled and thrown in the trash.