Why is dentistry not part of healthcare services?

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Mad Scientist
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#1297708 4-May-2015 15:39

because our health care model seems to be the one of the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff catching people who fell down instead of the one with barriers up the top to prevent people from falling down?

I don't know. i don't understand health care models

mattwnz

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#1297711 4-May-2015 15:42

tdgeek:
mattwnz:
tdgeek:
timmmay: Dentistry can be life threatening, infection can spread to the brain and kill. I suspect in that serious a case there may be a capability.

Thats an exception. If we include hernias and dentistry in the health system thats cool, tax will rise for everyone. Or force insurance. Hernais unless there is big pain is not life thrreatening, neither is missing teeth, gum infections, cavities. If any opf these gave rise to an infection, that then becomes a non dental medical issue. I do recall when I had a heart op last year I had to go to the dentist for a test, re your reason above

Or if we collected tax on their overseas companies that trade in the NZ market, but are based offshore as get around paying tax, this would likely more than cover those sorts of costs. I don't think we should have the need in NZ for health insurance, if everyone paid their fair share of tax.

Apple?

If you buy an Apple product from their online NZ/Oz store, they do charge GST on it, so they would be paying taxes back to the NZ gov on that.

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#1297716 4-May-2015 15:46

joker97: because our health care model seems to be the one of the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff catching people who fell down instead of the one with barriers up the top to prevent people from falling down?

I don't know. i don't understand health care models

Have you watched Michael Moores documentary on the US health system. It will make you glad that we live in NZ. But it looks like the UK and Canadian systems maybe better than ours. In the UK it showed a cashier at the hospital, but they actually gave out money to pay for peoples taxi home.

tdgeek

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#1297738 4-May-2015 16:03

At the end of the day we have to pay. Its about getting the right and fair treatment, which sets the tax cost. Voluntary insurance has a place, to remove non urgent costs perhaps

ajobbins

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#1297742 4-May-2015 16:10

I don't know about NZ, but here in Oz all the private health options seem to have pathetic limits on dental. Even some of the $400/m top plans I have seen (Hospital cover etc too) seem to have an upper limit of $1000 or so of major dental cover per year (anything outside a check up or minor filling). Need a root canal or something and the $1000 isn't even close to covering it.

The most expensive plan I could find with my provider was over $600 a month and major dental was capped at $1600 a year.

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deadlyllama

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#1297763 4-May-2015 16:34

tdgeek: At the end of the day we have to pay. Its about getting the right and fair treatment, which sets the tax cost. Voluntary insurance has a place, to remove non urgent costs perhaps

The private system (and private insurance) have their own costs and inefficiencies. They're there to make money, not to make you healthier. Americans spend more money on healthcare, per capita, than anyone else, yet their private, fragmented health system doesn't give them very good results.

My mother (just retired) is a nurse, and has very scathing things to say about the private hospitals in NZ. They do the "easy" operations, and if anything goes wrong, you're on your way into the public hospital where they can handle more serious work.

Health is a hopeless thing to leave to the market. Unhealthy kids don't learn, unhealthy adults can't work. Few people can easily cope with large medical bills. And many problems that are ignored because fixing them costs money, cost more money later. Rheumatic fever caused by rubbish housing, for instance.

mattwnz

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#1297767 4-May-2015 16:35

tdgeek: At the end of the day we have to pay. Its about getting the right and fair treatment, which sets the tax cost. Voluntary insurance has a place, to remove non urgent costs perhaps

The thing is that dentistry shouldn't be expensive, as essentially you are paying a labour cost, unless you are getting gold fillings. The problem is that is it so expensive that many people don't go, which essentially pushes up the price for everyone else. Also the education costs to become a dentist are very expensive, so they have had to have high fees to cover it.

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JWR

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#1297777 4-May-2015 17:07

deadlyllama:
tdgeek: At the end of the day we have to pay. Its about getting the right and fair treatment, which sets the tax cost. Voluntary insurance has a place, to remove non urgent costs perhaps

The private system (and private insurance) have their own costs and inefficiencies. They're there to make money, not to make you healthier. Americans spend more money on healthcare, per capita, than anyone else, yet their private, fragmented health system doesn't give them very good results.

My mother (just retired) is a nurse, and has very scathing things to say about the private hospitals in NZ. They do the "easy" operations, and if anything goes wrong, you're on your way into the public hospital where they can handle more serious work.

Health is a hopeless thing to leave to the market. Unhealthy kids don't learn, unhealthy adults can't work. Few people can easily cope with large medical bills. And many problems that are ignored because fixing them costs money, cost more money later. Rheumatic fever caused by rubbish housing, for instance.

I agree.

I think the evidence world-wide is that publicly funded health care is both cheaper and more effective than privately funded.

This isn't even an ideological argument in NZ anymore. All the major parties agree on the state providing healthcare.

Of course dental care should be part of the funding.

I don't know why it wasn't in the past. But, it should be now.

mattwnz

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#1297778 4-May-2015 17:10

JWR:

I don't know why it wasn't in the past. But, it should be now.

Totally agree. Infact if NZ wants to grow it's wealth, and to show it is a well off country, it would provide these services as part of what you get for your taxes. No health care is free, it is paid for by taxes. So the more tax NZ generates, the more health that can be funded. So people should remember that when buying from companies operating in the NZ market, that don't charge GST.

ajobbins

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#1297783 4-May-2015 17:17

The NHS in the UK has funded dental for a long time with good results (or as I understand). They are now looking (or already have?) stripping much of the dental from the NHS to try and save money.

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#1297787 4-May-2015 17:24

mattwnz:
joker97: because our health care model seems to be the one of the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff catching people who fell down instead of the one with barriers up the top to prevent people from falling down?

I don't know. i don't understand health care models

Have you watched Michael Moores documentary on the US health system. It will make you glad that we live in NZ. But it looks like the UK and Canadian systems maybe better than ours. In the UK it showed a cashier at the hospital, but they actually gave out money to pay for peoples taxi home.

Don't know about the UK, but Dental isn't covered in Canada.

Edit: UK answered above

Batman

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#1297830 4-May-2015 18:06

mattwnz:
joker97: because our health care model seems to be the one of the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff catching people who fell down instead of the one with barriers up the top to prevent people from falling down?

I don't know. i don't understand health care models

Have you watched Michael Moores documentary on the US health system. It will make you glad that we live in NZ. But it looks like the UK and Canadian systems maybe better than ours. In the UK it showed a cashier at the hospital, but they actually gave out money to pay for peoples taxi home.

hmm true our health system isn't too bad, i guess we can't have evrything

nakedmolerat

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#1297899 4-May-2015 20:35

Bung:
tdgeek: Scratch hernia repair, thats not covered ny health system now. Unless you are in writhing pain, you need to pay circa 5-8k

Must depend on DHB, neighbour fronted up to his GP with suspected hernia in afternoon was referred to Wgtn Hospital operated on that night and home before lunch next day.

Maybe the sugar taxes some people are promoting could finance more dentistry. Too many rotten teeth are self inflicted by poor diet and lack of cleaning.

This is a case of strangulated hernia. All urgent cases including oral abscess etc can be dealt publicly. Urgent here stands for life threatening.

Batman

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#1298036 5-May-2015 07:52

This is the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff catching people who fall off due to lack of barriers up the top

deadlyllama

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#1298088 5-May-2015 09:35

JWR:
deadlyllama:
tdgeek: At the end of the day we have to pay. Its about getting the right and fair treatment, which sets the tax cost. Voluntary insurance has a place, to remove non urgent costs perhaps

The private system (and private insurance) have their own costs and inefficiencies. They're there to make money, not to make you healthier. Americans spend more money on healthcare, per capita, than anyone else, yet their private, fragmented health system doesn't give them very good results.

My mother (just retired) is a nurse, and has very scathing things to say about the private hospitals in NZ. They do the "easy" operations, and if anything goes wrong, you're on your way into the public hospital where they can handle more serious work.

Health is a hopeless thing to leave to the market. Unhealthy kids don't learn, unhealthy adults can't work. Few people can easily cope with large medical bills. And many problems that are ignored because fixing them costs money, cost more money later. Rheumatic fever caused by rubbish housing, for instance.

I agree.

I think the evidence world-wide is that publicly funded health care is both cheaper and more effective than privately funded.

This isn't even an ideological argument in NZ anymore. All the major parties agree on the state providing healthcare.

Of course dental care should be part of the funding.

I don't know why it wasn't in the past. But, it should be now.

Our current government seems pretty keen on downsizing our public health system. People who once would have got on to a very long waiting list now don't get put on at all, so the numbers look better. One of my relatives badly needs his second knee operation but now that the first one is done he's in less pain so they don't care.

They (our current political masters) love to respond to claims that things have been cut with "but we're spending $xxx million on it" with no mention of the fact that, in real (inflation-adjusted) terms they're spending less per capita than the previous year. They can't drop the whole system and privatize it, but they can slowly degrade the care provided until it's worse than the private system, and then start telling us how bad public healthcare is and that we should all get health insurance.

IMHO politicians and their families shouldn't be allowed to use private healthcare, or private schools, then they might really care about how good the public system is. For kicks we could make them live in state houses and see how quickly rental WOFs became law...

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