Universal health care: characteristics
Universal health care is a government effort to provide health care coverage to all or some citizens of a country. Characteristically, most health care costs are covered by the population using compulsory health insurance. Universal health care systems necessitate government participation, usually in the forms of legislation, directives, and rulings. The program could be managed either independently or through a public-private scheme. Universal health care in America denotes that every American should have the right to inexpensive, premium health care, and with the ongoing debate between Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Obama, has gained a fair amount of notice worldwide.
Mrs. Clinton aims to propose a plan that would command everyone to be covered by the health care program, whereas Mr. Obama proposes only children to be covered. Via this scheme, dental coverage should be given its due importance as it is related to numerous health problems which can be prevented by proper oral health care for example heart disease. Since a majority of people do not care about oral health, they should be educated regarding the benefits of taking good care of their oral health and at the same time must be warned of the repercussions of not following good oral care practices.
Reasons for the negligence
One reason for the negligence of oral health care is the high rates charged by the dentists who tend to operate in the high-income areas making these essential services unavailable to the low-income groups which worsen the situation because as it is they are not insured and do not know the importance of oral health care.
Surveys and researches conducted have shown that the minority communities living in the U.S. seem to be more comfortable in seeking the medical help of dentists belonging to the same group as theirs or those who are non-native English speakers. One way of spreading the importance of oral health care involves the escalation of education in Dentistry.
It is also important to note that American society is rapidly progressing into a culturally diverse population, with not much knowledge about oral health care. As such there should be a double effort on the part of dentists to make adequate services available to the economically backward communities who cannot afford services with high rates. It therefore doubly rests on the dentistry profession to avail them of the necessary services at affordable rates with a continuous and long-lasting effort.
A change in both technologies, as well as approach, must be adopted by the dentist community to step up the awareness of the benefits of oral health care which is now rapidly being linked to other major health issues making dentistry no longer a cosmetic issue, but one which if ignored can yield severe health implications.