Everyone talks about US healthcare generally and I just wanted to SLAM our dental healthcare. It's needlessly treated as a luxury add on. Some employers don't offer dental coverage. That's a distinction without difference because coverage is a joke; you'll always pay out of pocket $$$. Dentists are often dismissive and won't offer preventative care beyond the usual cleaning, perhaps because they know you can't afford it out of pocket despite insurance.
Everyone I know quietly carries shame and anger about their dental health. They skip visits they can't afford financially or mentally. They get teeth pulled for $250 instead of fixed for $2k. It's an extended metaphor for the investments we can't make into our own futures, and we see & feel it slowly deteriorating. Plus occasional catastrophes setting us back.
Meanwhile the rich and glamorous get the Live Action Photoshop treatment. Their teeth are almost as fake-gross as ours are neglect-gross, except we can't help internalizing those standards, compounding our anxiety. The teeth wealth gap is right in our faces. They'll take comically pristine teeth to their graves, and the rest of us hope to one day afford dentures. Probably all we'll get is addiction, for the pain meds treating a severe infection; that's more profitable.
Dental healthcare please. How are we not rioting every day that our employment & healthcare systems dictate that we don't deserve this.