--- Vaj wrote: > > There are programs that let people go to the dentist. Medicare covers > dental care. > > If anything there are more people who have medicare/medicaid > accessing healthcare than you are aware.
Medicare reimburses for less than it costs to provide the services. Hence, Medicare patients must be subsidized by paying patients. This works out okay in larger hospitals that have healthy balance sheets, but falls apart with dentistry and other small private practices. Most dentists are very entrepreneurial, working alone or with a partner. They are loath to get paid less than the market rate, for demand is high. Where I live, it's not uncommon to have to wait months for a routine appointment. In the Seacoast Region of New Hamsphire a few years ago, not one dentist accepted Medicare patients, and no one speciazed in pediatric dentistry. For that reason, one of the community hospitals, Exeter Hospital, funded a pediatric dentistry practice that accepts Medicare patients and offers other means for low-income families to obtain oral health care. The hospital went one step further and invested half a million dollars in a mobile dentistry clinic. See http://tinyurl.com/7c75o. Such steps are remarkable, but hardly universal. ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> Join modern day disciples reach the disfigured and poor with hope and healing http://us.click.yahoo.com/lMct6A/Vp3LAA/i1hLAA/UlWolB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> To subscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!' Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/