Bad Tooth Cont....

Well it all started when I broke a tooth Feb 24,Sunday. I went to a Dental school to see if I could get it fixed with no positive result, minus $70.00 for fees.

The Next day, Feb 26, Tues, I decided to try the County hospital to see what they could do. This is the County Hospital in Oakland Calif, "Highland" hospital. I have no dental insurance, but I though I might have a slim chance of them repairing my teeth.

Wrong! Previous visits to highland netted the same result. All they want to do for you at Highland is "extractions". They mostly yank the offending tooth out of your mouth, it is difficult to get them to put a filling in a tooth. They have waiting period of one year for people they deem lucky enough to get a dental filling.

Highland is also good for getting Dental dentures and stuff. The Logic here is after they've extracted all your teeth, at least there decent enough to provide you with dentures.

I didn't fit any of those categories, they obviously wasn't going to put any Caps on my teeth, the Dentist offered to extract the tooth, but told me it wasn't advisable. The Dentist recommended some low cost dental places, but they wouldn't do anything else, not even a temporary repair of the tooth.

I got a chance to talk with the dentist, he recommended on of the dental schools, like the one he came from in California "University of the Pacific" in San Francisco. I even went to that place before, and got a dentist named "Payne". All he did was talk and had dreams of being a dentist, I got fed up with his talk and left without getting any treatment. Its another place to try again though.

The bad thing about this on the Medics side, is the Dental staff who work at "Highland". If your a dentist coming from a Dental school like U.C.S.F or UNIV of Pacific, imagine graduating from those places only to end up at Highland, where mostly they end up extracting teeth!

Those Dentist probably helped more people at Dental School! But considering those Dental student probably have large tuition bills to pay so they end up in a County hospital yanking teeth. This is not the way health care should be run , who benefits from this , the patients don't much, the Doctors don't.

I didn't let this guy pull my chipped Molar, though I thought about letting me yank my wisdom teeth, but saw the better of it as I might actually need those wisdom teeth for a while.

So I left Highland without getting anything done and spending half a day there. ( I'll get a low bill later)meanwhile, I thought of an idea.

I have a way to get the tooth repaired. I could borrow the money from my 401k . This would work provided I get an estimate from the Dentist, unfortunately the Dentist I saw on the 25 of Feb 2008, hinted that I might need a comprehensive dental exam, with xrays and cleaning..a little over almost $200 maybe, I'll have to front that money.

Also I may need alot of dental work done, exceeding the measly $500.00 for one crown, I figure I might need 2000.00 for at least 3 crowns, and some fillings. So now I need to schedule an appointment.

While its a good way of getting the work done, its not such a good thing since I have to dip into my "nest egg', my 401k money to pay for a dental problem, less money for retirement and I don't have much money.

I end up paying because my employer doesn't offer dental/health insurance. This is how people end up broke and homeless in America though.... medical bills. I hear the statistics are like 50% or 75% of the homeless in America get that way because of Medical bills, and most of those people have HEALTH INSURANCE!

The other thing that was suggested to me was to get on some basic health welfare program , like Medi-cal. Medi-cal might offer some help with dental bills and maybe I can get some decent health care. So right now I am waiting to hear from the Medi-Cal people, also I will have to make an appointment with some dentist who offers low cost, good care dental work. Should I move to Mexico?

Also someone suggested