This is not the fault of not having insurance, it’s child abuse.

“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.”

I’m sorry, but $80 bucks?¬† She didn’t allow her kid treatment for $80 bucks?¬† A $80 routine extraction would have taken care of the problem and Deamonte would be alive.¬† His mother worked and do not tell me that she couldn’t afford a simple $80 for an extraction - bull crap.

This is the worse piece of agenda article writing I’ve seen in a long time and at the expense of this kid. ¬† Point of fact I don’t have dental insurance and cannot afford it besides, nor can I afford the thousands of dollars the dentist wants to fix some problems I have.¬† But a call to the Dentist - who was all too willing to work out a payment plan - and the work began.

I understand how hard it is to go without insurance, I too am one those myself.¬† Yet this isn’t a story about not having health insurance, it’s the story about how dependency on the system makes people stupid.

The kid isn’t dead because of having no dental insurance, or because the government is evil, or anything other than a mother didn’t take care of her kid.