Once again, I feel incumbent on me to urge that every citizen take responsibility to become educated in the affairs of government. Whether it is the quality of your drinking water, the state of polluted coastal waters after a rainstorm, or the money being spent to upgrade your neighborhood schools and street, we all need to pay more attention. Assuming one political party or bureaucrat had got your family’s best interest in mind is ignorant misplaced trust.
I’m thinking today about health care and particularly – with a new crown cemented in – dental health. My dentist, a great guy and a top professional, mentions to me that in 2017 his business advisors tell him that the reimbursement rates for treating his military and dependent patients are going to fall below profitability. He knows that these patients – who don’t have a lot of money anyway – may have to pay more to continue receiving care through his practice. He knows that lower fees mean the best practitioners may drop patients.
My dental experience over two decades ago was stellar. But by the end of my military career, the universal health care I received was poor, took a long time to be treated and then was triaged and sent on my way. By the end, I paid for private dental and health care through my new employer’s PPO plan. It took me a half-century, but I know now that dental health is as, if not more important to one’s well-being. And that’s where, Medicaid, ObamaCare, and probably this new Trump initiative fall down. Dental care is just not a priority – not to politicians, not to many of the middle class – otherwise I would have taken better care of my teeth over fifty years – and probably not to those who rely on Government aid. Research on the web bears this out.
This is the sort of thing that people need to impress on the bureaucrats and the legislatures. Multi-gender bathrooms, naming post offices, renaming schools with offensive Civil War general names, and changing the responsibility for education to the local and state level have all sorts of emotional attachment. What about basic values? Upholding the promises made both to the military veteran and to the less fortunate. And to the self-employed business owner like the dentist who wants to use his formidable talent to treat patients -until the Government forces him out of business.
Truths, Half-truths, and Sea Stories 