5 ms·

If he did not know he was in pain, how would universal healthcare have helped?

teddyh 2y ago
Presumably he knew he had a bad tooth, which was probably why he finally did go to a dentist.
muststopmyths 2y ago
Usually regular dental checkups include x-rays every year. The biggest value proposition of universal healthcare (IMO) is preventive care, stopping minor issues from getting to the point of hospitalization.
alistairSH 2y ago
Regular dental check-ups likely would have caught the tooth rot before it led to opioid addiction. Hopefully in time that a simple filling would suffice, but even a non-urgent extraction or root canal is better than months/years of chronic pain. From what I can tell, chronic pain eventually morphs into "background noise" in a person's life. It's there, but similar to depression or anxiety, it just becomes a new normal and people develop strategies to deal with it. Often that's drug abuse.
- ghastmaster 2y ago
  > Regular dental check-ups likely would have caught the tooth rot before it led to opioid addiction. Hopefully in time that a simple filling would suffice, but even a non-urgent extraction or root canal is better than months/years of chronic pain. Quoting from this paper: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10035485/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10035485/ ...we found that limited information was reported on health outcomes in relation to quality of care within the context of UHC. In addition, there was a global lack of evidence on measures of quality of care related to UHC... Anecdotally, I have had access to rather cheap healthcare almost my entire life, but opted not to visit a dentist for 15 years. > From what I can tell, chronic pain eventually morphs into "background noise" in a person's life. This has been my experience, personally and vicariously. Edit: I realized the linked paper refers to lack of data on outcomes. That is not really the question here. However, it would be nice to get more data on outcomes. The question here is whether the individual would have visited a dentist without knowing there is an issue. I tried to find data on dental visits in universal healthcare systems vs non and could not find anything.
  - alistairSH 2y ago
    Brits have better dental health than Americans[1]. Both in measurements of decay, number of lost teeth, and unsurprisingly they visit the dentist more often. 1 - https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/british-teeth-arent-that-bad-american-teeth-are-far-worse/ https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/british-teeth-arent-tha...

Presumably he knew he had a bad tooth, which was probably why he finally did go to a dentist.

Usually regular dental checkups include x-rays every year. The biggest value proposition of universal healthcare (IMO) is preventive care, stopping minor issues from getting to the point of hospitalization.

alistairSH 2y ago

Regular dental check-ups likely would have caught the tooth rot before it led to opioid addiction. Hopefully in time that a simple filling would suffice, but even a non-urgent extraction or root canal is better than months/years of chronic pain. From what I can tell, chronic pain eventually morphs into "background noise" in a person's life. It's there, but similar to depression or anxiety, it just becomes a new normal and people develop strategies to deal with it. Often that's drug abuse.

ghastmaster 2y ago
> Regular dental check-ups likely would have caught the tooth rot before it led to opioid addiction. Hopefully in time that a simple filling would suffice, but even a non-urgent extraction or root canal is better than months/years of chronic pain. Quoting from this paper: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10035485/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10035485/ ...we found that limited information was reported on health outcomes in relation to quality of care within the context of UHC. In addition, there was a global lack of evidence on measures of quality of care related to UHC... Anecdotally, I have had access to rather cheap healthcare almost my entire life, but opted not to visit a dentist for 15 years. > From what I can tell, chronic pain eventually morphs into "background noise" in a person's life. This has been my experience, personally and vicariously. Edit: I realized the linked paper refers to lack of data on outcomes. That is not really the question here. However, it would be nice to get more data on outcomes. The question here is whether the individual would have visited a dentist without knowing there is an issue. I tried to find data on dental visits in universal healthcare systems vs non and could not find anything.
- alistairSH 2y ago
  Brits have better dental health than Americans[1]. Both in measurements of decay, number of lost teeth, and unsurprisingly they visit the dentist more often. 1 - https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/british-teeth-arent-that-bad-american-teeth-are-far-worse/ https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/british-teeth-arent-tha...