Tuesday, October 16, 2007

On the UK Dentist Story

How pathetic. In response to the national outcry for national health insurance, a story gets planted in the US Media going by headlines such as: "English 'pull own teeth' as dental service decays".

I am sure the rate of self-performed dentistry in the U.S. is a lot higher than in the U.K. Only, the U.S. government has no incentive to do such a study as was done in the UK.


As I understand it, what has happened in the US and in the UK, since about 10-20 years ago, modern dentistry had been a great success in cutting down on stuff that historically plagued teeth (cavities, I suppose) and that for a period of time it looked like much fewer dentists would be needed (witness the closing of dental schools in the US during the late '80's and 90's. ).

In the UK, they recognized that great success and created a new contract with dentists to cut down on the number of patients Dentists had to see.

In the US, the dentistry field recreated itself, doing lots of cosmetic dentistry (to make money).

In the UK, the new contract apparently backfired in unanticipated ways (yes, you always get those with government programs). But all in all it seems a temporary situation in Britain until they re-do the new contract. In the meantime, if you have enough money in Britain, you can still get dental work done, just like in the US.

References:
UK Story on Dental Care Problem

Dental Care Crisis in United States

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