1. I share your viscerals squick and will raise you a claustrophobia! If people wanted to stick sharp objects in my ears, I'd be violently opposed to that too, and I don't even breathe through my ears.
2. Did you see that bit in the Times last week about the decrease in dental care? Lots of employers don't even offer dental coverage, and among those who do it's always rip-roaringly expensive and covers very little, and lots of dentists these days don't take medicaid/medicare patients because the payments are too low and the result is 25-30% of the US population not getting care.
2A. WTF! If 25-30% of the population did not have running water in this day and age, the federal government would have a cow have a Tennessee Valley Authority meeting. I say, from a strict good governance perspective: WTF!
2B. Dental infections can kill you outright, and even when they don't they're murder on heart patients.
3. My teeth aren't as good as yours, but based on the number of root canals among my contemporaries (and in one case, a gum skin-graft, to fix receding gums), we totally won the genetics lottery.
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2. Did you see that bit in the Times last week about the decrease in dental care? Lots of employers don't even offer dental coverage, and among those who do it's always rip-roaringly expensive and covers very little, and lots of dentists these days don't take medicaid/medicare patients because the payments are too low and the result is 25-30% of the US population not getting care.
2A. WTF! If 25-30% of the population did not have running water in this day and age, the federal government would
have a cowhave a Tennessee Valley Authority meeting. I say, from a strict good governance perspective: WTF!2B. Dental infections can kill you outright, and even when they don't they're murder on heart patients.
3. My teeth aren't as good as yours, but based on the number of root canals among my contemporaries (and in one case, a gum skin-graft, to fix receding gums), we totally won the genetics lottery.