What the Greens did yesterday with the launch of their plan for state funded dental care was to reprise a policy that the late Jim Anderton and his Progressives were pushing in 2011.
But their way of paying for it through a wealth tax is nothing short of bizarre. As one wit said, many an experienced and long serving dentist would be funding his own business through the wealth tax he’d have to pay under this dopey arrangement.
That’s before he took the first plane to somewhere else which appreciated his skills more.
Let’s be honest. The policy is never going to see the light of day because (a) there won’t be a Labour - Greens coalition after October 14 and (b) Labour aren’t interested in this initiative.
Which is not to say it’s a bad idea. In fact it’s a very good idea.
The reason dentistry was not part of the first Labour government’s nationalised health system set up in 1938 was essentially because of self-interest from the dentists who wanted the ability to set their own fees and work independently.
In Britain dentistry is part of the NHS.
The compromise is state funded dentistry up to age 17. If children have terrible teeth before this age, and thousands do, it’s because their parents are neglecting their children’s oral health, and most likely letting them drink sugary fizz way too often.
There’s no real excuse apart from slackness and discipline.
But adult dental care is absurdly expensive and the idea that it should be state funded or at least subsidised is worthwhile. Why couldn’t need be linked to the Community Services card?
But every time it comes into the political conversation, it’s a minor party policy which National and Labour never show much interest in.
Are the dentists still lobbying to be setting their own fees 85 years after Mickey Savage announced his Social Security scheme?
Bad oral health leads to bad health in other parts of the body. Early detection and treatment can be an ambulance at the top of the cliff.
Even worse public education in oral health appears to be close to non-existent these days. National made a play with their Tamariki Nico Ora or My Smile policy rolled out for the 2020 election.
The policy was blown away in the wake of National’s disastrous defeat that year.
Politicians say the cost of state funded or subsidised dental care is prohibitive.
The Greens estimate it would cost 1.2 billion. I doubt that’s the case because Jim Anderson said it would cost a billion back in 2011.
But even it’s 2 billion, that would still add only about 4 percent to the health budget.
It’s an idea a major party should run with, but if Labour and National haven’t been enthusiastic about it since the Second World War, I can’t them getting excited about it now.
"Bad oral health leads to bad health in other parts of the body." This is incorrect.
Early last century, for nearly 10 years, Dr Weston A Price and his wife traveled around the world in search of the secret to health. Instead of looking at people afflicted with disease symptoms, this highly-respected dentist and dental researcher chose to focus on healthy individuals, and challenged himself to understand how they achieved such amazing health. Dr. Price traveled to hundreds of cities in a total of 14 different countries in his search to find healthy people. He investigated some of the most remote areas in the world. He observed perfect dental arches, minimal tooth decay, high immunity to tuberculosis and overall excellent health in those groups of people who ate their indigenous foods. He found when these people were introduced to modernized foods, such as white flour, white sugar, refined vegetable oils and canned goods, signs of degeneration quickly became quite evident. Dental caries, deformed jaw structures, crooked teeth, arthritis and a low immunity to tuberculosis became rampant amongst them. Dr. Price documented this ancestral wisdom including hundreds of photos in his book, "Nutrition and Physical Degeneration". This book is still available and in it's 8th edition. I would highly recommend it to anyone who wants to know the truth. It would of course be impossible to repeat his study now because elements of the modern diet have largely replaced traditional diets in most cultures.
Perhaps those on benefits should have them
docked if they have no record of their children attending a free Dental Clinic?
Same for everyone else too. If you don’t send your kids for free dental care then pay yourself.
Unfortunately it will be the kids that suffer, as usual.
I do believe that dental care is ridiculously expensive in NZ. Like doctors, we simply don’t train enough dentists.