*No* healthcare sysytem is perfect... but some are a hell of a lot more imperfect than others. (All animals are equal, but...) Most private insurers in the states no longer provide any dental insurance whatsoever in employment-based group plans or HMOs, so the fact that (at least in the state where I live) Medicaid includes dental coverage seems like a wonderful boon to the needy... until, of course, you try using it. My own dentist -- the one who I see now, not the one I used to pay out of pocket to see back when I was working and could afford the out-of-pocket expense -- retired almost 20 years ago but then came out of retirement to work a couple of days a week at a dental clinic that serves the urban poor. Frankly, he probably should have stayed retired; three of the fillings he put in for me in one year all fell right out of the teeth they filled, and on top of that on one occasion he accidentally injected the novocain into one of my facial nerves so that that whole side of my face went numb up to the eye.
Re your uncle: Psychiatric care for those with mental illness should perhaps be a society's highest healthcare priority, both because such patients are typically least able to advocate for themselves, and because they're also often at high risk of harming themselves or others when they don't receive the care they need. Unfortunately, what happens instead is that, because thinking about mental health needs makes people uncomfortable, they try to push the whole issue under the rug, leading to brilliant policies like "hand the schizophrenic her meds and discharge her after the shortest minimum stay possible, and if she stops taking her meds afterwards for any reason, well, it's hardly our fault."
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2005-04-28 09:37 pm (UTC)Re your uncle: Psychiatric care for those with mental illness should perhaps be a society's highest healthcare priority, both because such patients are typically least able to advocate for themselves, and because they're also often at high risk of harming themselves or others when they don't receive the care they need. Unfortunately, what happens instead is that, because thinking about mental health needs makes people uncomfortable, they try to push the whole issue under the rug, leading to brilliant policies like "hand the schizophrenic her meds and discharge her after the shortest minimum stay possible, and if she stops taking her meds afterwards for any reason, well, it's hardly our fault."
...Apparently I have rant left in me yet. q: