In your first paragraph you want dentistry to become compulsary service. In your last paragraph you talk about horror stories that are caused when dentristry is just a job and not a profession. Those two don’t jive. In between I agree, there should not be monopolies in medicine in general.
First of all, Small Smiles caters to Medicaid patients - children. Medicaid pays much less than private insurance. The dentists in Small Smiles are required to bring in a certain amount of money each day. They have been accused of doing unnecessary work. And if they do multiple procedures in one day, the get a bonus.
The real question, to me, about small smiles is why would any dentist want to work under such harsh conditions if they make so much money on their own. I would have to conclude that they are either not good enough for private practice, don’t want to be bothered with being a small business or they are charitable. However, the substandard work, unnecessary fillings, root canals and caps, tying them down in a papoose - not allowing the parent to be there, holding their noses so they are forced to open their mouths - doesn’t indicate a charitable person.
The truth is that Medicaid doesn’t give dentists the money they want. They will continue to hold poor people “hostage” until the government forks over more money.