This video is kind of long, but Sen. Hatch really explains things really well. Since I will become a member of a stomatology profession which relies heavily on health care, I am very concerned about the way that health care is moving.
The new health care bill will impose more and more regulations on physicians and continue to decrease the amount that they compensate the doctors, making it very difficult for doctors to stay afloat. It is forcing many doctors into early retirement and dissuading many of the brightest to choose other more "friendly" professions.
Because dentistry is not considered a specialty of medicine, it is not talked about often in the health care reform. Despite that, the American Dental Education Association (ADEA) policy statement "Oral Health Care: Essential To Health Care Reform" states "any comprehensive reform of the U.S. Health Care System must include coverage and access to affordable oral health services.
While I agree that we need affordable oral health services, I do not agree with he way that the ADEA has proposed. They propose that the financial burden of ensuring coverage for oral health care should be shared equitably by all "stakeholders." That includes federal and state governments (funded via you and I), employers, private insurers (hiking your premiums), other payers, and even the dentists themselves.
Great Britain implemented such a plan, and it has only increased costs making the dentists and patients suffer. It has even lead some patients in Great Britain to perform dentistry on themselves by pulling their own teeth.
Right now in the U.S., most patients are able to negotiate with their family dentist for services, and many dentists are stepping up and doing charitable dentistry. But if the U.S. government meddles their hands into this already autonomous profession, the charitable instincts of the dentists will deflate due to the increased cost for them to run their business.
Let's let dentistry itself, rather than an inept government, take care of dentistry issues.
It is an interesting issue that really has a lot of different angles. I fully agree that the government shouldn't meddle in dentistry, however they are somewhat already involved. With all this financial crisis Medicare has already cut some dental services, especially preventive dental medicine, from its coverage. This has had an impact because now things like crown and bridge are not covered, but they will cover extraction. So elderly patients are loosing their teeth and are not getting important treatments that can preserve dentition.
ReplyDeleteSo what they are saying is that if they are going to revamp medicaid and medicare and work to cover a greater amount of people, they need to have some way of helping the same people have access to Dentistry. While we as a profession can give or our time, skills, and assistance gratis, we can't do so for millions.
The best we can do is work to keep government from directly interfering with right to practice and treat, but work to preserve those of lower income to also have access to dentistry. Just some thoughts as I came across your post. Thanks