$150 teen dental bonus
The “great” news on the weekend was that our newly elected prime minister was implementing a $360 million Teen Dental Plan to begin on July 1st.
As primary school children already receive school dental services under State Government plans, and according to OECD figures, the dental health of Australian adults ranks second to worst among developing countries, perhaps the government feels that teenagers are the ones that need to be targeted.
In “The Age” newspaper on Sunday in the article “Dental Scheme will ease the pain: Rudd”, the Prime Minister was quoted as saying:
“We have a huge problem in terms of dental health in the country”
For the majority of people who fall into the category of being eligible for this dental subsidy, this would be of great benefit - extra money from the government to fund regular dental checkups.
Is anyone questioning the reason behind teenagers having such bad teeth that they require a subsidy to encourage them to go for regular checkups?
Don’t we have water fluoridation in Australia? We’ve all been led to believe that this toxic addition to our water is meant to improve the state of our teeth.
I guess it’s not doing it’s job - perhaps a big con by the powers that be?
Perhaps parents taking some responsibility in educating their children (and being an example for them) about the damaging effects of sweet, fizzy, acidic soft drinks and the benefits of abstaining, would have a greater impact on our ranking as the second worst in terms of dental health in developed countries?
Dental checkups are great, but they are no substitute for taking care of your teeth in the first place and preventing the things that a dentist may need to fix
Check out this video I found on how acidic soft drinks really can be:
