Last Friday while eating breakfast I noticed what I thought was a piece of cereal lodged in my gum. After extricating it with my tongue I immediately realised it was a filling that had come out of my tooth.

I booked a dentist appointment for later that day.

This alone sets me apart from many Australians. When the ABS last surveyed our ability to access to healthcare across the 2024-25 financial year, a quarter of people said they put off seeing a dentist even when they needed to.

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Whereas the tendency to put off going to the GP is consistent across levels of socioeconomic disadvantage (which measures things such as income, employment status and skill levels), the tendency to avoid the dentist is very much linked to disadvantage.

That’s because nearly two-thirds of people put off seeing a dentist due to reasons of cost, whereas cost is a factor for only 29% of people when deciding to put off seeing a GP:

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My new filling set me back $237, even after private health insurance (and yes I know I am stupid – after all I wrote the column “Private health insurance is a dud”).

Little wonder that 14% of Australians........

© The Guardian