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Dentists are bad - by Matthew Yglesias - Slow Boring

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In these polarized times, I think it’s important to try to find opportunities to bring people together and draw attention to public policy issues that are orthogonal to deeply entrenched culture wars. For example: Dentists. On one level, yes, oral health is important, and it is good that there is a profession dedicated to advancing it. On the other hand, the form of dental care that most people need is a regular cleaning, and perhaps some x-rays just to check for problems. And if you’ve ever been to a dentist’s office, you’ve probably noticed that the dentist does not actually do this work and that it is done instead by a dental hygienist. One might think that since the work of a routine dental appointment is done by a hygienist rather than a dentist, a standard oral health appointment would simply be with a hygienist who lets you know if you need more specialized dental care. In reality, however, “scope of practice” rules pretty strictly limit which services a hygienist can provide, a

In these polarized times, I think it’s important to try to find opportunities to bring people together and draw attention to public policy issues that are orthogonal to deeply entrenched culture wars. For example: Dentists. On one level, yes, oral health is important, and it is good that there is a profession dedicated to advancing it. On the other hand, the form of dental care that most people need is a regular cleaning, and perhaps some x-rays just to check for problems. And if you’ve ever been to a dentist’s office, you’ve probably noticed that the dentist does not actually do this work…

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