this post was submitted on 14 Aug 2026
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But "perfect white teeth" aka veneers are often a cosmetic procedure and are thus generally not covered by universal healthcare (there are exceptions ofcourse).
I'd argue a rootcanal treatment is very necessary so I don't think they are comparable situations. That is ofcourse just the opinion of a random internet person.
Teeth are never covered by health insurance as far as I know, unless the cause was an accident.
Which is insane, btw. Teeth are the beginning of the digestive tract, relatively exposed to the elements, and you only get one adult set.
I broke two front teeth and had a wisdom tooth knocked loose and later extracted in a fall at work. Workman's comp insurance is supposed to pay for it all (many thousands of $$$) but so far they've balked for the last eight months. Meanwhile my dentist has eaten the entire cost. Workman's comp insurance treats people only through preferred providers, but they have no preferred dentists or oral surgeons so it's a bit of a grey area.
And they still wonder why they get Brian Thomson’d.
Jokes aside, why is there not a single Mamdani in the US inventing now insurance should work, with private/contracted hospitals or doctors, forcing the premiums down so that it can be used by many people? I mean, it feels like 99.9% of the people would immediately switch to something like that.
We have something like that, it's called Medicare. You just have to be 65 to get into it. A very reasonable proposal, first mooted in the '90s, was called Medicare-for-all; the idea was that they would just lower the eligibility age by two years every year to allow the country to ease gradually into universal healthcare. If we had done this back then we would have universal healthcare today.
Some people blame Hilary Clinton for this, because she allegedly rejected this option and instead pushed for immediate universal health care back when her husband first became President. I think this is probably a distraction from the real culprits. The private insurance companies fought like hell against universal healthcare and would have fought just as hard (and just as successfully) against Medicare-for-all.
Can’t make money at it. Can’t get investors. Investors are a requirement. Can’t get into hospitals and doctor networks.
This is arguably because, if dental care was free, it would remove a visible signal of someone’s wealth and position in the social hierarchy
Dentist procedures are being done in the Balkans for people further north. And all countries there have universal health care. But waiting lines for free procedures are reality. So many opt to pay out of pocket to get it sooner.