Fear factor: why cost can be the scariest part of going to the dentist | Greg Jericho

We can’t talk about universal and equal healthcare without including dental health

The history of public health over the past 40 years has been to consider a need for universal healthcare for most parts of our body, but as soon as the issue concerns our teeth rather than a bone or internal organ we should pay the costs ourselves. A new report by the Grattan Institute demonstrates this has led to a massive inequality of dental care and shows it is time to move towards a universal dental scheme.

The Grattan Institute’s “Filling the Gap” report notes that when Medicare was introduced, it did not include coverage for a range of other services. However, since then it has been extended to “a number of additional health services, including nursing, psychology, physiotherapy, chiropractic, dietetics, podiatry, occupational therapy, osteopaths, audiologists, exercise physiologists and speech pathologists”. And yet primary dental care remains on the outer.

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from The Guardian https://ift.tt/2WoS0Kx
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