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Unlike the Anglosphere countries apparently, here in Japan dental care is considered "medical" and an essential part of healthcare, and is covered by medical in
by midoridensha 3y ago
Unlike the Anglosphere countries apparently, here in Japan dental care is considered "medical" and an essential part of healthcare, and is covered by medical insurance just like any other medical problem. Cosmetic stuff of course is extra, but the essentials are covered no differently than any other procedure.
- chefandy 3y agoYeah— the distinction strikes me as vestigial.
- rjzzleep 3y agoIn Germany it used to be that way a long time ago. Then it went into base treatment free(amalgam fillings) and rest paid. Having been in the backend of health policy in Germany I can tell you that German current health leadership has been pushing to move normal care in the same direction as dental care to make more money.
- olliej 3y agoHealth insurance in the US makes it super explicit: "health insurance" does not cover dentistry or anything vision related. Because being unable to eat or see is not a health issue?
- midoridensha 3y agoIt's worse than that. Of course, you don't actually "need" teeth to eat: you can just eat baby food all the time I suppose. But a lot of infections in people start in the mouth, and historically tooth infections were the cause of early death for countless people. There's a reason people needed bad teeth pulled in the days before modern dentistry. And yeah, vision checkups are pretty important to: regular checkups find problems inside your eyes that will cause blindness later. The US seems to do an absolutely horrible job of preventative healthcare. Here in Japan, everyone gets a free yearly health checkup that looks for all kinds of issues; it includes blood, urine, and stool testing, and also includes hearing and vision checks, abdominal ultrasounds, a chest x-ray, etc.