12 year old dies of toothache

[Balta1701]

On second thought, I think this story is important enough to give it its own thread.

Twelve-year-old Deamonte Driver died of a toothache Sunday.

 

A routine, $80 tooth extraction might have saved him.

 

If his mother had been insured.

 

If his family had not lost its Medicaid.

 

If Medicaid dentists weren't so hard to find.

 

If his mother hadn't been focused on getting a dentist for his brother, who had six rotted teeth.

 

By the time Deamonte's own aching tooth got any attention, the bacteria from the abscess had spread to his brain, doctors said. After two operations and more than six weeks of hospital care, the Prince George's County boy died.

 

Deamonte's death and the ultimate cost of his care, which could total more than $250,000, underscore an often-overlooked concern in the debate over universal health coverage: dental care.

 

Some poor children have no dental coverage at all. Others travel three hours to find a dentist willing to take Medicaid patients and accept the incumbent paperwork. And some, including Deamonte's brother, get in for a tooth cleaning but have trouble securing an oral surgeon to fix deeper problems.

 

In spite of efforts to change the system, fewer than one in three children in Maryland's Medicaid program received any dental service at all in 2005, the latest year for which figures are available from the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

WaPo.

 

So, to summarize; lack of insurance + a toothache = $250,000 worth of medical bills and a dead 12 year old.

[vandy125]

On second thought, I think this story is important enough to give it its own thread.

WaPo.

 

So, to summarize; lack of insurance + a toothache = $250,000 worth of medical bills and a dead 12 year old.

 

It is tragic, but instead of blaming the government right away on this one, I would like to hear both sides of the story.

 

If his mother had been insured.

 

Why was his mother not insured?

 

If his family had not lost its Medicaid.

 

Why did they lose Medicaid?

 

It could be that they lost it for a completely moronic reason, but it could also be that the mother put her children in a dangerous situation by not doing what she could to get a decent job, etc. We don't know which side of the spectrum it is. There is too much information lacking to make a judgment on the tragedy.

[southsider2k5]

Why did they lose Medicaid?

Seriously, how do you lose Medicaid? Also why do people really think that more government involvement is going to make things better? The article sights the Medicade treatment rates, what would make people think that dumping everyone into a program like that, would make it run quicker?

[Balta1701]

It is tragic, but instead of blaming the government right away on this one, I would like to hear both sides of the story.

Why was his mother not insured?

Why did they lose Medicaid?

 

It could be that they lost it for a completely moronic reason, but it could also be that the mother put her children in a dangerous situation by not doing what she could to get a decent job, etc. We don't know which side of the spectrum it is. There is too much information lacking to make a judgment on the tragedy.

There's a reason I always try to stick a link to the article in question. It's 3 pages, and I'm not excerpting the whole thing in 1 post. The answers to your questions are within that article.

The Driver children have never received routine dental attention, said their mother, Alyce Driver. The bakery, construction and home health-care jobs she has held have not provided insurance. The children's Medicaid coverage had temporarily lapsed at the time Deamonte was hospitalized. And even with Medicaid's promise of dental care, the problem, she said, was finding it.

 

When Deamonte got sick, his mother had not realized that his tooth had been bothering him. Instead, she was focusing on his younger brother, 10-year-old DaShawn, who "complains about his teeth all the time," she said.

 

DaShawn saw a dentist a couple of years ago, but the dentist discontinued the treatments, she said, after the boy squirmed too much in the chair. Then the family went through a crisis and spent some time in an Adelphi homeless shelter. From there, three of Driver's sons went to stay with their grandparents in a two-bedroom mobile home in Clinton.

 

By September, several of DaShawn's teeth had become abscessed. Driver began making calls about the boy's coverage but grew frustrated. She turned to Norris, who was working with homeless families in Prince George's.

 

Norris and her staff also ran into barriers: They said they made more than two dozen calls before reaching an official at the Driver family's Medicaid provider and a state supervising nurse who helped them find a dentist.

 

On Oct. 5, DaShawn saw Arthur Fridley, who cleaned the boy's teeth, took an X-ray and referred him to an oral surgeon. But the surgeon could not see him until Nov. 21, and that would be only for a consultation. Driver said she learned that DaShawn would need six teeth extracted and made an appointment for the earliest date available: Jan. 16.

 

But she had to cancel after learning Jan. 8 that the children had lost their Medicaid coverage a month earlier. She suspects that the paperwork to confirm their eligibility was mailed to the shelter in Adelphi, where they no longer live.

[StrangeSox]

One of the few things Blago has done right, IMO, is to give every child medical coverage in this state.

[vandy125]

There's a reason I always try to stick a link to the article in question. It's 3 pages, and I'm not excerpting the whole thing in 1 post. The answers to your questions are within that article.

 

My bad. I did not realize that you had not posted the whole thing. I think the summarization of the snippet threw me off.

 

It looks like another one of those "How do you deal with the poor?" issues. I don't know what the answer would be. It sounds like there are a lot of children she is taking care of without the proper finances/education (it sounds like the desire to make things better is there). We need to find a way to deal with the root of the problem rather than one of the many results of it (overloaded Medicare system, etc).

[Balta1701]

It looks like another one of those "How do you deal with the poor?" issues. I don't know what the answer would be. It sounds like there are a lot of children she is taking care of without the proper finances/education (it sounds like the desire to make things better is there). We need to find a way to deal with the root of the problem rather than one of the many results of it (overloaded Medicare system, etc).

This is one of those many, many cases where a little bit of prevention will go exponentially far towards cutting costs in the long run, but unfortunately, that's not how we've designed our health system. Our health system has been designed to deal with things when they crop up, not to give people the ability to prevent them from cropping up.

 

Therefore, we arrange for people to be charged pretty large bills, all things considered, for issues that could be taken care of by catching things early. Here is a prime example. This is exactly what the whole Health Savings Account (HSA) concept advocates actually; people are taken care of when the largest things happen through catastrophic insurance policies, but when small things crop up, people are discouraged from taking care of them because the charge out of their own pocket winds up being almost as bad as the charge for something much more serious.

[hitlesswonder]

One of the few things Blago has done right, IMO, is to give every child medical coverage in this state.

 

That program is simply a bunch of PR garbage. It's essentially unfunded (it's maintained by underfunding the State pension liabilities), so the State's policy is to pay at low rates and to delay payment as long as possible. As a result, medical practices hate to take patients covered by the program and many simply refuse to.

 

You can't really insure all the kids in Illinois unless you raise taxes. And that's not going to happen. Liberals have to face up to the fact that taxpayers don't want to pay for programs like this. There's no way you can convince a majority of people that it's good idea to take their money to pay for insurance for people without jobs.

 

Just for record, I'm actually in favor in of some form of basic taxpayer-funded insurance for everyone (which doesn't prohibit the purchase of private insurance to get better benefits). I'd be willing to pay more taxes rather than have to worry about losing a job and being uninsured, being denied coverage for a pre-existing condition, etc. But that's just my opinion, and I can't go pick the pockets of my fellow citizens just because I think something is a good idea.

[NorthSideSox72]

This is analagous to seat belts laws, in a way. I am in favor of people being ticketed and fined HEAVILY for not buckling in their children (or putting them in proper car seats, depending on age). But with adults, I think you get into paternalistic law and that isn't necessarily good. I feel its important for children because they don't have a choice yet - they aren't choosing their lot in life, and they don't understand the dangers of not wearing a seatbelt.

 

Same goes for insurance. Therefore, I think we need to have basic insurance for all children, and I'd be more than willing to pay a little bit for that, just as Hitless Wonder was saying. But unlike Hitless, I'd guess a majority of people would support such a thing. And its also a matter of priority - this is more important, to me, than funding things like business education programs and other things that are good but not as critical.

 

The long run benefit of this for society is huge, by the way. If more poor kids are healthy, a larger number of them will find their way out of the dark hole of poverty. And its a perfect example doing something other than giving them a handout, but which is likely to go a long way.

[CanOfCorn]

This story is just so sad. Like someone said, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

 

One thing that would help would be to cut some of the paperwork and red tape involved for the health professionals. But, since it's government...that won't happen.

 

And just to add my two cents...I would pay extra to insure all children under the age of 18. But I'd like to see that it actually is going to it, cuz I don't trust the man.

[Balta1701]

One thing that would help would be to cut some of the paperwork and red tape involved for the health professionals. But, since it's government...that won't happen.

It's not just the government that leads to the enormous boatloads of paperwork within the medical industry, a big part of it is the complexity of the private insurance industry, where each company has its own set of rules and requirements for things that need to be filled out, steps that are valid for each group, etc.

[Controlled Chaos]

Teaching these kids to brush their teeth would have helped, but the damn government probably dropped the ball on that too.

[Rex Kickass]

Some kids do just have bad teeth, ya know.

[hitlesswonder]

This Malcolm Gladwell article on healthcare starts off discussing tooth decay. Almost prophetic. It's a long read, but for the tiny percentage of people out there interested in public health policy, I think it's interesting. I don't believe Gladwell is a knee-jerk "socialist" either, IIRC he used to be in favor of the government staying out of healthcare.

[Balta1701]

Teaching these kids to brush their teeth would have helped, but the damn government probably dropped the ball on that too.

I assume that you never got a cavity when you were a kid?

[Texsox]

I was involved in a project down here regarding child care for working families. The myriad of different programs and paperwork was daunting and impossible for me to follow. You lose one set of eligibility when your income raises, but other programs kick in. I can't understand how someone with a 6th grade education and limited reading skills could ever get it right.

 

Then when a company does step in and help its workers to qualify and receive all the benefits that we try and provide the working poor, they are called villains.

[hitlesswonder]

Then when a company does step in and help its workers to qualify and receive all the benefits that we try and provide the working poor, they are called villains.

 

I don't understand... who is the company, who thinks they are villains and why?

[EvilMonkey]

I don't understand... who is the company, who thinks they are villains and why?

Walmart

[Texsox]

I don't understand... who is the company, who thinks they are villains and why?

 

The highest visibility company is Walmart. Their Human Resource groups do a great job of letting their employees know about educational opportunities through grants, loans, etc. They help with finding child care programs, medical, dental, and vision programs, etc. The same stuff that Lesko will sell you in a book. All these programs are designed to help bridge people from public aid to fully independent. They help the "caught in the middle" workers who were sometimes better off not working, in the sense they had handouts.

 

Many people blame the companies that publicize these programs for not just providing those benefits. In a nutshell. don't provide those benefits, but tell you employees about the government programs they qualify for, bad. Don't provide those benefits and don't tell your employees, good.

[Queen Prawn]

We didn't have dental care between the ages of 7 and about 18. It wasn't provided by either of my parents' jobs and it was more than my parents could pay out of pocket.

 

I ended up having a root canal from a lost filling that I took too long in replacing. Other than that, my sister didn't have one cavity and my brother (I think) had one or two. It sucked, but now I have my own insurance I got braces (due to get them off soon) and go every 6 months.

[mreye]

I assume that you never got a cavity when you were a kid?

 

6 rotted out teeth by the age of 10? No.

[Balta1701]

6 rotted out teeth by the age of 10? No.

The kid who died wasn't the one with 6 rotten teeth.

[Texsox]

I wonder if bottled water without flouride is causing more dental problems for kids.

[Balta1701]

I wonder if bottled water without flouride is causing more dental problems for kids.

If this family was spending its $$$ on bottled water...

[Texsox]

If this family was spending its $$$ on bottled water...

 

Sorry, two different things, I was just thinking about children and teeth