Your teeth and gums are just as important to your well-being as any other part of your body.
Why does Medicare coverage exclude this?
Medicare is supposed to be the gold standard of United States health coverage, yet it still has some serious gaps. About half of Americans 65 or older need some dental work, which is very expensive these days and Medicare doesn’t cover it. Infections from untreated dental issues can cause other problems, such as heart disease, strokes, and general unhappiness from pain and/or embarrassment.
Since most retirees are living on incomes of less than $2000/month, and even an extraction costs upwards of $500, you can see how these costs can seriously impact the quality of life of a retiree; a lot of my fellow pensioners would rather live with the problem than, say, go without electricity. Last year, before I retired, I had to have dental implants installed, as my dentures were no longer cutting it. This cost over $25000, almost half of my yearly income when I was working. If you’ve been seeing those TV commercials lauding dental implants as the best invention since the martini, and that are directed squarely at Seniors, just be aware of this before you go into a long, large amount of debt.
Medicare also lacks coverage for hearing, vision or long-term care services. However, many Medicare Advantage plans cover these services, although out-of-pocket co-pays on these plans can be expensive.
And now we are hearing that, in order to pay for recent tax cut bill, services such as Medicare and even Social Security are going to have to be cut. It seems that paying for the rich to get richer and for better ways to irradiate our adversaries, we who have worked our entire lives paying taxes so we could retire in comfort must foot the bill. Remember this in November. Get out and vote.