Just as an aside i think dental care in Australia is ripoff expensive. As anecdotal evidence; with the ban on international travel local dentists are apparently very busy as people can no longer fly abroad for more cost effective care.
I read somewhere that dental issues are universal enough that you don't get nearly the same cost averaging that you can get for other medical problems.
When I looked into it, dental insurance basically amounted to "a payment plan for dental expenses you would pay anyway"
Meh over a large population that is not actually true. Some people just don't make that much salvia for example and get dental problems way more than others, even with identical dental care behaviors and diet of someone with pretty much no dental problems.
Also it prevents bigger issues in the future that a socialized healthcare system would have to pay for. Cheap socialized dental care basics I think is a net positive for a society in general. The poor will be more productive and create more tax revenue than the amount of money put into it.
That’s because most dental care is predictable: prophylaxis. Insuring against it is just adding an admin fee. Insurance is good for unpredictable things.
As context for non-Australians, dental care has only very limited funding in the Australian public healthcare system. I have read that the government of the day thought that opposition from dentists might jeopardise the battle for public health cover. It is the policy of at least one party (The Greens) to expand dental cover under Medicare in Australia.
