Dentistry Throughout The World - United States

United States

In the United States dentistry is generally practiced by dentists who have completed a post-graduate course of professional education. With exception of rural Alaska, Dental therapists are not permitted to practice in the United States. Use of dental therapists, dental health aids, or dental hygienists to independently perform routine fillings or cleaning is strongly opposed by the American Dental Association, (the A.D.A.), the dentists' professional association. This has resulted in excellent but high-priced treatment which, however, fails to delivers services at a reasonable price to the lower social classes. With only a few exceptions, neither government-sponsored health care programs such as Medicare nor Medicaid cover routine dental treatment. As a result large sections of the population do without. The worst conditions are in Kentucky and West Virginia.

Rates for dental services have been rising rapidly, out pacing the rate of inflation. After falling for many years, the percentage of both adults and children with unfilled cavities began to rise in 2000 as did the percentage of adults with no teeth. Increasingly, people with adequate income to pay the fees are forgoing treatment.

Read more about this topic:  Dentistry Throughout The World

Famous quotes related to united states:

    “To the United States the Third World often takes the form of a black woman who has been made pregnant in a moment of passion and who shows up one day in the reception room on the forty-ninth floor threatening to make a scene. The lawyers pay the woman off; sometimes uniformed guards accompany her to the elevators.”
    —Lewis H. Lapham (b. 1935)

    “In the United States, it is now possible for a person eighteen years of age, female as well as male, to graduate from high school, college, or university without ever having cared for, or even held, a baby; without ever having comforted or assisted another human being who really needed help. . . . No society can long sustain itself unless its members have learned the sensitivities, motivations, and skills involved in assisting and caring for other human beings.”
    —Urie Bronfenbrenner (b. 1917)

    “I incline to think that the people will not now sustain the policy of upholding a State Government against a rival government, by the use of the forces of the United States. If this leads to the overthrow of the de jure government in a State, the de facto government must be recognized.”
    —Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)

    “The House of Lords, architecturally, is a magnificent room, and the dignity, quiet, and repose of the scene made me unwillingly acknowledge that the Senate of the United States might possibly improve its manners. Perhaps in our desire for simplicity, absence of title, or badge of office we may have thrown over too much.”
    —M. E. W. Sherwood (1826–1903)

    “Falling in love with a United States Senator is a splendid ordeal. One is nestled snugly into the bosom of power but also placed squarely in the hazardous path of exposure.”
    —Barbara Howar (b. 1934)