Sometimes the local news is so disgusting I just want to scream out loud. Yesterday's ABJ reports that Akron Community Health Resources will be closing Akron's only low-cost dental clinic which has served over 2500 citizens. Reason? No funding available. The grants have dried up, the feds won't help, and the poor will be left to turn up at our hospital emergency rooms for treatment. Who will pay that cost? You and I, of course. And what will the poor suffering dental patient get out of it? Pain medication and maybe an antibiotic. No actual dental work.
Our citizens teeth are allowed to rot while the federal government continues to pour billions of dollars into blowing the Iraqi landscape and people into bits. Look at the head of the column to the right here. See that 412 billion and growing has already vanished from our economy. When I began this blog last August the figure was around 360 some billion. The ruination of Iraq and the decline of civilization in this country go hand in hand.
Checking out the comments under the ABJ article, I was somewhat surprised to see many sympathetic voices with only a smattering of "poor people are that way by choice" diatribes. One person suggested that a portion of the proposed tax increase go to funding the clinic permanently and if that were the case, I'd vote for it without hesitation.
To those who could only comment "get a job," I would ask them how people with rotting teeth will fare in job interviews. Will their general health increase or decrease with dental problems?
I was so enraged by this news that I emailed our new senator to ask if he could help. I am embarrassed to be living in a city that cannot find help for its poorest citizens.
Ladesbet Giriş
8 months ago
4 comments:
Actually, the cost of the war is now up to 414+ billion. The last time I looked and registered the amount mentally it was at 412 billion. How quickly those dollars fly out of our pockets and into the military-industrial complex.
It is a fatal inertia that lets people sit and watch themselves being robbed. The cost of medicine and dentisitry is so outrageous in America and keeps climbing.
My wife spent thousands of dollars on her teeth in the 1980's in New York for procedures that were new. She had a high profile job and the dentists there cater to people with that kind of pressure...Since moving here, she has had to have almost all of the work done in NYC removed because it was just expensive techniques that gave temporary results...we are talking implants. She is a French citizen and totally covered under the medical plans here. She has paid virtually nothing for the work done by a dentist who has equipment that is probably better than the mid town NYC dentist she paid thousands of dollars to.
I'm not covered the same as her yet, but I have never paid more than 20 Euros for a visit! If I had to have major work done, the only real money I would have to pay would be if I opted for a more expensive cosmetic effect and then the price would be a fraction of what it would be in the states.
You deserve decent affordable medical care! America has let its people down and the discussion of anything along those lines always degenerates into a harangue against socialized medicine!
It isn't just your town, it's the whole country that no longer takes care of the poor. After all, we don't want to interfere with the oil company's record profits, do we?
Microdot -- once again you have me green with envy. Are you going to become a full French citizen one day?
Kev -- I realize it is happening elsewhere. It's just that I don't want my city to be like everywhere else. We are a strong liberal Democratic community. We should be able to do something about this.
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