A Pocket Full of Insurance and no Dental Care to Buy

This Boston Globe headline says it all: Dental benefits widen, waiting lines grow. Massachusetts has inflated the supply of money available to buy dental care, and now there are a bunch of big spenders with nothing to spend it on.

My favorite quote:

Two years into the state's bold healthcare experiment, its early success in expanding dental coverage may be threatened by a shortage of dentists willing to treat newly insured patients.

You have to wonder if they'll ever get it. It doesn't do you any good to give people money to pay for a product that doesn't exist. Insurance is not the same as access.

My second favorite quote:

The Massachusetts Dental Society has been urging members to join [the state's dental program], saying it is the responsible thing to do.

So here we come to the root of the whole scheme: counting on dentists to share the altruistic morality that says sacrifice is where it's at. Counting on altruistic dentists continuing to be their own worst enemy. (Someone needs to send every member of the Massachusetts Dental Society a copy of Atlas Shrugged.)

And finally, a ray of hope from Michael Wasserman, a Massachusetts dentist:

"I think if a dentist is going to treat these patients he or she should not be forced to lose money."

Amen -- nice to see a dentist come right out and say it. Now, if only dentists would realize that wanting to be paid for providing a very valuable service is not immoral. What is immoral is expecting dentists to provide that service at the cost of destroying their own livelihood.