What's your solution for this "crisis"?
Immediate solution is for every dentist to take 5, 10 or some reasonable number of low-income Americans for free on a sliding scale or for what medicaid offers, every year.
Long run solution. Allow Dental Health Aide Therapists (DHATs) to work in the U.S. DHATs have worked for decades in developed countries as effectively as dentists.
DHATs are two year trained specialists that will drill, fill and bill more cheaply in areas and mouths where dentists refuse to go.
The first U.S. DHATs are working in Alaska after a multi million dollar lawsuit from the American Dental Association and the Alaska Dental Society failed to stop the DHAT program.
Rural Alaska has tried for decades to lure dentists to their dentist deprived areas. The DHAT program is working very well for them.
Unfortunately, the politically powerful ADA lobbies hard against any group who infringes on their lucrative monopoly.
Organized dentistry claims that they sued because they are very concerned that the Alaskans will get substandard care.
However, a recent expose by WABC news in Virginia revealed horror stories about how poorly children were treated by dentists in Small Smiles, a nationwide chain. The ADA didn’t make much noise about that. THey did however, send out a notice to their members to be prepared to be questioned by the media.