Joanna
Andy F wrote:
> On 5/8/06, joanna <123hop at comcast.net> wrote:
>
>> Really? Then why are people pulling their own teeth out -- according to
>> that article?
>
>
> Everybody knows British food sucks, too.
>
> <http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/050829fa_fact>
>
> THE MORAL-HAZARD MYTH
> The bad idea behind our failed health-care system.
> by MALCOLM GLADWELL
> Issue of 2005-08-29
> Posted 2005-08-22
>
> ...
>
> Several years ago, two Harvard researchers, Susan Starr Sered and
> Rushika Fernandopulle, set out to interview people without health-care
> coverage for a book they were writing, "Uninsured in America." They
> talked to as many kinds of people as they could find, collecting
> stories of untreated depression and struggling single mothers and
> chronically injured laborers—and the most common complaint they heard
> was about teeth. Gina, a hairdresser in Idaho, whose husband worked as
> a freight manager at a chain store, had "a peculiar mannerism of
> keeping her mouth closed even when speaking." It turned out that she
> hadn't been able to afford dental care for three years, and one of her
> front teeth was rotting. Daniel, a construction worker, pulled out his
> bad teeth with pliers. Then, there was Loretta, who worked nights at a
> university research center in Mississippi, and was missing most of her
> teeth. "They'll break off after a while, and then you just grab a hold
> of them, and they work their way out," she explained to Sered and
> Fernandopulle. "It hurts so bad, because the tooth aches. Then it's a
> relief just to get it out of there. The hole closes up itself anyway.
> So it's so much better."
>
> People without health insurance have bad teeth because, if you're
> paying for everything out of your own pocket, going to the dentist for
> a checkup seems like a luxury. It isn't, of course. The loss of teeth
> makes eating fresh fruits and vegetables difficult, and a diet heavy
> in soft, processed foods exacerbates more serious health problems,
> like diabetes. The pain of tooth decay leads many people to use
> alcohol as a salve. And those struggling to get ahead in the job
> market quickly find that the unsightliness of bad teeth, and the
> self-consciousness that results, can become a major barrier. If your
> teeth are bad, you're not going to get a job as a receptionist, say,
> or a cashier. You're going to be put in the back somewhere, far from
> the public eye. What Loretta, Gina, and Daniel understand, the two
> authors tell us, is that bad teeth have come to be seen as a marker of
> "poor parenting, low educational achievement and slow or faulty
> intellectual development." They are an outward marker of caste.
> "Almost every time we asked interviewees what their first priority
> would be if the president established universal health coverage
> tomorrow," Sered and Fernandopulle write, "the immediate answer was
> 'my teeth.' "
> ...
>
> --
> Andy
>
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