Public dental care system for Americans?

[jc1199]

I believe there should be a publicly funded and organized dental care system in the US. The same way we have a publicly operated Police, Fire, and military service. A way better use of tax payer money than giant tax cuts for the rich, corporate welfare, nuclear weapons, pointless wars, fighter jets, and massive bank bailouts.

 

[MattKW]

Please write to your Congressman. One of the biggest stumbling blocks for publicly funded dentistry (or medicine) is that someone (i.e. the taxpayer) has to pay for it. And then the government has to regulate the whole shebang so there's an even balance. Dentists want more money for less work, and governments want more work for less money. So, it's never got up and going here in Australia. But if Busybee is up and about, she'll be able to talk from the British experience with the NHS.

 

[honestdoc]

All the tax cuts you mentioned benefit the interests of those who have the resources to put the politicians into office. Like Dr. MattKW mentioned, funding will always be a problem at the federal level. The US has many states that are "Red" for Republican or "Blue" for Democratic control. I live and work in a strong Blue state with many community dental clinics and gov't assistance...granted my taxes are way more than in the Red states.

Unfortunately the US is more divided than ever and I don't want to debate on who is more wrong...tax cuts for the rich or care for the lazy.

 

[jc1199]

We dropped 3 or 4 TRILLION on unnecessary wars, 1.4 trillion on ONE fighter jet program (F-35), A trillion (at least) on nuclear weapons, 220 million a pop on F-22 fighter jets(no one knows the end), 3 billion a pop on new Virginia class submarines (no one knows the end), and the list goes on and on and on. But we "can't afford" wasteful stuff like education and basic health care. How is it that small countries like Cuba, Ireland, and Iceland can afford these wasteful things like healthcare and education but the richest country in the world just can't seem to do it?

 

[honestdoc]

Do you know who benefits from all that spending? The defense contractors that supply and build the weapons. They basically funded the elections to their favor...always has, always will. Big oil companies restrict renewable and sustainable energy sources from going mainstream...always has... and you know. I'm sorry but I'm numb to all the BS of US politics and wastefulness. I don't have any answers.

 

[MattKW]

We dropped 3 or 4 TRILLION on unnecessary wars, 1.4 trillion on ONE fighter jet program (F-35), A trillion (at least) on nuclear weapons, 220 million a pop on F-22 fighter jets(no one knows the end), 3 billion a pop on new Virginia class submarines (no one knows the end), and the list goes on and on and on. But we "can't afford" wasteful stuff like education and basic health care. How is it that small countries like Cuba, Ireland, and Iceland can afford these wasteful things like healthcare and education but the richest country in the world just can't seem to do it?

Cuba used to be heavily subsidised by the old USSR, and there's suggestion of manipulation of statistics to meet government expectations, and facilities are outdated and in disrepair; Ireland suffered an economic setback 2009-2013, and their health system has struggled with results starting to fall, the concept of a truly universal hea;lthcare plan was abandoned in 2015 due to projected costs; Iceland has only a population of 385,000 people, and gets nearly all it's energy needs from geothermal, which in turn makes their manufacturing economy low-cost. So, there's no any particular country that stands out if they were all compared on an equal footing. the USA is a particularly complicated and large economy that makes a universal scheme really unlikey.