Child Dies From a Toothache...No Insurance.

In a wealthy country like ours no child should ever die from a toothache. Our government literally throws billions of dollars at Iraq without blinking an eye, and then cannot account for any of it, yet 45 million people in the United States do not have health insurance and cannot afford the most basic health care. I wonder how many people those billions of dollars unaccounted for, much of it in cash, could have covered?

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.