Teeth

Some of you may have seen this already, but for those of you who haven't, the story. Rachel Nabors is a comic book artist, living paycheck to paycheck like most young (and many not-so-young) people in US society today. She has a severe cross-bite that is causing the bone of her jaw to thin. This needs to be treated in the near future, or the damage will become too severe to fix, and she risks losing her teeth. The procedure costs $25,000. Rachel doesn't have insurance, so at the encouragement of her friends, she's asking for donations.

Now, let me toss in a little from my own experience. I'm currently wearing braces. Before they first went on, I had to have four permanent teeth removed in addition to the four wisdom teeth that shouldn't have been left there as long as they were. So, from my own experience:

Insurance wouldn't help. Not enough. It might cover the surgical portion of it, IF it's considered a medical procedure instead of a dental one. (Goofiest thing. On me, the anesthesia was covered by medical, but the extraction was dental.) If it's dental... No, not gonna help much. 8 extractions put me WELL over my yearly dental coverage limit. I ended up paying several hundred dollars out of pocket. Even if she had really good dental insurance, that would maybe knock off $2K from the $25K if the surgery was considered dental.

The orthodontia, nothing covers. No insurance if you're over 23, no federal benefits, nothing. Both insurance companies and the federal government say that orthodontia is always cosmetic for adults.
Bull shit.
I would not be having this done for cosmetic reasons. Because of my age, I've developed one exposed root and two or three partially exposed roots as a complication from the procedure (which may or may not heal after the braces are off), it's excruciatingly painful some days, and it is really helluva expensive! And, I will probably be wearing a retainer every night for the rest of my life. No, the reason I'm having it done is because my choices were have my teeth straightened and keep them for the rest of my life, or come in for more fillings every few years until they finally had to be pulled and replaced with dentures. As an added benefit, I no longer have a tooth literally cutting into my tongue, which is nice.
Furthermore, if it's cosmetic for adults, it's cosmetic for children. That's a bullshit excuse to cut off all adults from help.

This is not something Rachel "got herself into". This would not be addressed if she were somehow "more responsible" or "got a real job with insurance". She's a victim of a shitty system, and there's lots of people out there. So:
1) she could use some help. It is a serious problem, not just a cosmetic issue. Please donate if you can. (Just click on the banner, and it'll take you to a page with the full story and a donate button.)
2) it's time Americans started holding our politicians feet to the fire and demanding that this country act like it has citizens instead of walking resources fit for exploitation.