Rationed dental care in the UK

Sunday Times:

MORE than 10,000 children with severe dental problems including jaw deformities and an inability to bite properly are waiting up to seven years for corrective treatment on the National Health Service.

Orthodontists have warned that in many cases the children suffer from much more serious problems by the time they are finally given treatment.

This weekend specialists claimed that in many parts of England the NHS had in effect ceased to provide corrective surgery for children.

They also warned that the government’s introduction of an 18-week waiting time target for orthodontics at the end of the year would be so difficult to meet that patients would not be referred at all and treatment would be rationed further.

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It is one of those things that is all too obvious in the UK, where bad teeth seem to be prominent. A competitive atmosphere, and lower taxes where people would have their own money to spend on dental care would make more sense, unless you prefer the "fairness" of socialism.