Should Everyone have Dental Insurance?

A few weeks ago a dentist friend of mine had a free dental Saturday for children. So my interested was peaked this morning when I read a Kansas City Star article titled "Free dental clinic draws 1,100 patients — and turns away more". Here is the way that it starts:

Mike Faulkner had a couple of teeth that had been hurting him for years. So when he learned about the giant two-day free dental clinic in Kansas City, Kan., he got there bright and early — 3:30 Friday morning. None too soon. The doors to the Kansas Mission of Mercy clinic weren’t scheduled to open until two hours later, but people from as far away as the Colorado border had begun arriving before 8 Thursday night. Traffic was tied up, and the parking lot at the vacant Walmart where the clinic is being held was packed tighter than you’d expect on Black Friday. Organizers let people in early to spend the night indoors. The Salvation Army served breakfast. And by 6 a.m. – before the first patient even sat in a dental chair – all 1,100 slots for the day were filled and people were being turned away.

If the story had not been prefaced in that way I might have thought that I was reading about a medical mission to someplace like Haiti. The stories of hurting people in the article (suggest you read it here) breaks my heart. Some may think that this is the appropriate way for poorer people to get health care but I wonder if it is merely a symptomatic of a health care system run by insurance companies. Not sure what it is but something just seems wrong.

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