Massive cavities, mouthfuls of broken teeth, bleeding gums and abscesses — they’re just some of the serious dental issues Dr. Melvin Lee has treated in less than two weeks of providing care under Canada’s new public dental insurance plan.

  • MacroCyclo
    11·
    6 months ago

    If I had to guess it was probably done due to expediency. Starting something like this from scratch is going to take a lot more time than outsourcing. This program got implemented pretty quick. I agree though, longterm it is excess.

    • Hacksaw
      4·
      6 months ago

      I doubt it. The provincial governments already run massive “health insurance” programs in Canada, this would not have been an impossible task to add a small dental program that only covers a fraction of the population to that.

      Private “health insurance” cannot be cheaper than public. You have expenses which are the cost of people going to the dentist. And you have revenues, which are paid for through taxes. The only math that changes is that private insurance also adds profit for shareholders on top.

      This is purely about privatizing Canadian healthcare.

      • Mathieu@beehaw.orgEnglish
        3·
        6 months ago

        However, the Federal government has limited options when it comes to influencing the provincial health care programs. They can offer money with strings attached, and that’s about it. Given the hostile atmosphere from some provinces… they may not have been able to offer dental care by working through this traditional means.

        • kent_ehEnglish
          3·
          6 months ago

          However, the Federal government has limited options when it comes to influencing the provincial health care programs.

          Exactly. Half of the provinces (the ones with conservative governments, to the surprise of nobody) were fighting against the feds doing any sort of dental care program.

          I’m plesantly surprised they were able to get even this weak program operational.

        • Hacksaw
          2·
          6 months ago

          That’s fair.

          It’s funny, conservatives seem to be able to make Canada shittier no matter what. We try to get dental care in the provinces but they’ll stop it’s implementation. So now we have to pay extra to get the private sector to fund it, and they win again since we just privatised some of our healthcare.

      • OminousOrange
        2·
        6 months ago

        I think it’d be a stretch to call some of those provincial ‘health insurance’ programs functional in several aspects.

      • Mongostein
        2·
        6 months ago

        Here in Alberta our premier refuses to co-operate with the feds. One benefit is that Marlaina Smith can’t fuck with the program.

    • girlfreddy
      52·
      6 months ago

      I would guess it’s also part of the bigger picture to privatize government services, which almost every Westernized nation has been doing … because capitalism does everything better. /s