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This video was adapted from a column Austin Frakt wrote for the Upshot. Links to further reading can be found there:
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First!!
It doesn’t cover vision or hearing AIDS either.
In this video, does “medicare beneficiary/enrollee” refer solely to those over 65, or does it include younger beneficiaries who qualify through disability? 0:32 specified this specific age group, so I’m unsure if it was carried over for the rest of the statistics.
The lack of dental in these programs is baffling.
I’m pretty sure that medicare beneficiaries would include the disabled who are in the program.
It’s actually worse because over 65 Medicare beneficiaries have considerably more choices with the regard to advantage plans. Under 65 disabled do not. Lucky if there’s one available and that one isn’t widely accepted. Poor, sick people need to die as quickly and/or as painfully as possible. The billionaires demand it.
Nurmi Husa that’s the demographic I fall under, so I was definitely curious.
fighting blind Also, when a person on disability is forced to switch after the initial two years from Medicaid to Medicare you will take a significant cut to your income. Ten to twenty percent thanks to co pays and premiums that didn’t exist with Medicaid. Because an older disabled person needs less care, right? And of course if you have Dental problems, the costs really soar.
Unfortunately there are no limits on out of pocket expenses for Medicare beneficiaries.
Agree. Germany has a very strict we-only-pay-for-the-most-cost-effective-things-policy. We are encouraged to go to the dentist every six months + whenever something is wrong. Cavity fixes, root canal treatments, extraction of not-saveable teeth and wisdom teeth, X-rays every three years. For anything that hurts, you can get local anesthesia. All is paid for by the most standard insurance. They do take the risk of long-ignored tooth infections very seriously.
I recently went to the dentist (after years of avoiding it), got 14 cavities fixed, dental calculus removed and my wisdom teeth extracted. The only thing I paid is 10€ for antibiotics + pain medication.
I can finally enjoy icecream.
I’m pretty jealous of that price. One of the big gaps in the Canada Health Act is the lack of dental benefits, meaning it is up to each provincial health plan to decide how to cover them, so each province has different rules regarding who gets these additional benefits, usually children, those on social assistance, and so on, but most people have to have private insurance, or pay out of pocket. As I do not have private insurance, I didn’t go for quite a few years, and I was lucky that I only had two cavities that had to be dealt with when I went earlier this year. However, that still ran a few hundred dollars. Dental and prescription coverage does finally seem to be getting some real attention Canadian politics, but I am not holding my breath.
Unfortunately we’re not allowed to have national healthcare coverage in the US. We can pay to subsidize the defense of half the planet but unless you’re in the US military or Congress you’re expendable.
Well, to be fair, vets seem to be quite expendable too…
I know I haven’t seen a dentist in years because of the cost, and my teeth are certainly suffering for it.
How much would it cost?
problem is insurance companies and medical facilities work together to make prices ridiculous so the states cant afford it…
Why isn’t dental care in these cases treated like “preventative care” since making investments to prevent more chronic / expensive health issues down the line seems to save money?
Very good point.
Because you are thinking like rational person.
It causes a host of problems. For more extreme cases where the person has no teeth it causes digestive problems from not being able to chew properly and some more research and I been doing this for yrs now (I posted a comment above) it causes posture issues http://starecta.com/body-posture-depends-teeth/ – then factor in the mental anguish of going through life with no teeth (at a young age in an elderly insurance) the increased anxiety, the shattered self esteem, being alienated by those around you, being bullied and teased, adding depression. With no hope of finding a job and no romantic relations either.
You should watch their video titled: *Preventive Care is Good, Even Though It’s Not Saving Money*
I think the whole dentistry industry has evolved into something that resembles a scam. I suspect a deep investigation would reveal an industry driven by profit with little regard to evidence-based medicine. Why do dentists make so much money (about as much as a primary care physician)? Why do we think 6-month checkup/cleaning is a standard (what other part of your health do you have a specialist check biannually, whether or not you have symptoms)? Do they even validate best practices (floss might not even be effective!). Perhaps having CMS more involved might help regulate the industry, but probably not.
Dentist here (inb4 biased source): there’s different tiers of dental care. You’re thinking about the ‘elite’ dentists who charge crazy amounts, but they provide mostly cosmetics, better service, better esthetics, sparkling water, ect. The normal tier is focused on getting people out of pain and treating/preventing disease. A normal tier dentist isn’t going to treatment plan a $20,000 treatment because it’s a waste of time. An elite dentist will try to sell you on the expensive plan because you went to him in the first place, so they assume you can afford it. When you go to the wrong tier, that’s when people get bitchy about the prices.
We have a set of rules defined by evidenced based literature which we must follow, and some guidelines for certain things, but aside from that there’s an art to it. So even within a medicaid program you get can wildly different treatment plans, all of which are perfectly acceptable.
A $100 checkup and cleaning every 6 months is cheaper than $1000+ every few years. That 6 month standard is very much evidenced based financially speaking or insurance companies wouldn’t cover it
Yes, we can agree that there are ethical dentists and unethical dentists (ie, profit-driven). My point is that the profit-driven dentists have laid the groundwork for all dentists to benefit from. Dentistry on a whole overcharges (I know one who makes $250k working 4 day weeks while his assistants fill cavities) and follows questionable practices. The “6-month check-up prevents costly repair later” argument is a great example: its based largely on marketing and misconceptions. The actual evidence points to no additional benefit of seeing a dentist every 6 months compared to symptom-driven appointments.
Tyler Bradshaw why should a dentist (or any other professional) make less money than a physician? Is there a law of something I’m not aware of?
Are there “classes” of professions, where some of them must be payed less then others?
This is interesting, as the NHS doesn’t cover dental care either. I wonder why dental health isn’t perceived as important enough in numerous systems?
queenlucysroyalmaid1 it’s not that it’s not considered important enough, it’s that dentists pay for it not to be the case
I broke a wisdom tooth several years ago. I called to make an appointment to have it removed, when I showed up they cleaned my teeth, dentist walked in, poked around for less than five minutes says “you have a broken wisdom tooth we’re going to have to take out” and leaves. They get me out of the chair, take me to the front desk and hand me a bill for 500 dollars for a teeth cleaning and tell me I need to schedule another appointment to have it removed, which is going to be a 2700 dollar bill. Cheaper to fly across the Atlantic, have it done in Spain, and return home. And the standard of care was better there from a spanish doctor than it was here from a pakistani immigrant. Dentists are worse thieves than lawyers.
Note that the thumbnail still said Medicaid!
I don’t think this channel discussed anything related to dental health either, other than fluoride in water. My persisting questions are does flossing help? How frequent should I visit a dentist?
dentistry is so freaking expensive in europe as well, a lot of countries’ systems cover only very basic procedures and most dentist offices are private owned 🙁
I was waiting at the dental check out line behind an elderly gentleman last week; his bill was $324 while mine was $0 (thanks to my yearly $20 insurance premium). While I don’t know the reason for his visit, we were both there around 45 minutes. Why would the US not cover the population most likely to need dental work?
So my main take away is that if you want healthcare as an American, you should visit Mexico, the flight and all expenses is still cheaper.
0:18 do you mean the reverse? like, “dental care in Medicaid”?
Even Australia doesn’t cover dentistry with it’s Medicare (which every Australian is eligible for). You need private health insurance.
I see no reason for repairs with gray fillings and tooth removal to be covered. Aesthetic procedures can still be uninsured.
Chew on this (pun intended – have to keep my sense of humor) I am disabled and through that I get Medicare. Just to point out there is a small percentage of younger folks who have Medicare through SSDI. 11yrs ago I lost all my teeth due to medications that Medicare approved to treat my disability. I was 36 yrs old. I reached out to Medicare and was told unless I had cancer in my mouth or end stage renal failure they don’t cover dentures. I was unable to get Medicaid because my SSDI income knocked me out of eligibility. I guess the less than 10k a year made me a Rockefeller rich in their eyes. Fast forwarding last year I finally get Medicaid. Thinking I could get dentures I was happy. Nope. Being I been with out teeth so long there has been structural changes to my jaw and significant bone loss so you can’t just toss a denture in my mouth. There is pretty extensive corrective work that needs to be done so I can get dentures which includes breaking my jaw to realign it then bone grafting then the dentures. Medicaid says that is facial reconstruction (cosmetic) and is giving me a hard time. It’s not cosmetic this is what NEGLECT leads to. I continue today at the age of 47 to fight to get dentures. It really frustrating and beyond me why dental was never in medicare.
I think US politicians should only be able to get the worst insurance available through a government program in their state.