Thursday, October 18, 2007

Now this is Sicko

It seems the British National Health Service is so short of dentists that people are treating themselves . From the CNN Europe article: "LONDON, England (CNN) -- Some English people have resorted to pulling out their own teeth because they cannot find -- or cannot afford -- a dentist, a major study has revealed. Six percent of those questioned in a survey of 5,000 patients admitted they had resorted to self-treatment using pliers and glue, the UK's Press Association reported."

Funny... national health care sounded so much better when Michael Moore talked about it.

5 comments:

Will said...

Yeah but it's free.

ogre said...

Grim.

I wonder what the equivalent numbers are in the USA? After all, a lot of us can't find/afford a dentist either.

Anonymous said...

I don't know about the UK and have never lived there, but here in the US, the numbers are really bad. One out of every four Americans over the age of 60 has none of their own teeth in their mouth.

I'm knocking on wood for good genes, exposure to fluoride in the water where I grew up, and good dental care that I've enjoyed most of my life. Who knows what the future holds.

Joel Monka said...

Yes, many here in the US can't afford a dentist, either- but the British-style National Health Service was supposed to FIX that problem... Michael Moore portrayed them as one of the examples we were supposed to model ourselves after.

Will said...

I meant that in the most sarcastic way when I said it's free.

First of all, nothing is free. As somebody somewhere said, if you think health care is expensive now, wait until it's free.

And second, when it's "free", a la Michael Moore, that means it's run by the government--run the same way they run things at the post office and the DMV, and with the efficiency that the Katrina clean up and the mess in Iraq have been run.

Seems like there ought to be a way to provide a safety net without turning the whole thing over to the government. But that assumes that our Congress has the will and the capability to do get something accomplished.

Will