Three Way News

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Thursday, October 11, 2007

Dentists v. Lawyers

For American dentists, times have never been better.
The same cannot be said for Americans’ teeth.
With dentists’ fees rising far faster than inflation and more than 100 million people lacking dental insurance, the percentage of Americans with untreated cavities began rising this decade, reversing a half-century trend of improvement in dental health.

That part of the story didn't annoy my lazy hind end enough to blog again. This part, however, did:

Dentists, of course, are no more obligated to serve the poor than are lawyers or accountants. But the issue from a public health standpoint, the critics say, is that even as so many patients go untreated, business is booming for most dentists. They are making more money while working shorter hours, on average, even as the nation’s number of dentists, per person, has declined.

Although I don't practice law, I am a licensed attorney in the state of Wisconsin. As such, I am fiscally obligated to serve the poor. The Wisconsin State Bar has a mandatory fee for all attorneys in order to provide legal services to the indigent.

In other words, dentists are less obligated to serve the poor than attorneys, at least in Wisconsin. Yet it's attorneys who are characterized as greedy. Not fair, is it?