Re: brushing

Not brushing is pretty self-destructive and self-loathing behavior. If he won't take care of himself, and doesn't think you're worth the effort either, then you obviously care more about he relationship than he. Staying is hurting you and enabling him. Leave, and perhaps he will pull himself together when he's no longer enabled. My ex did.

Re: teeth

Missing teeth is the sign of no insurance or money, not a trailer park. I have several missing teeth, from the time in my life that I had no dental insurance and no extra money, even working as many as three jobs. When an abscess occurred, I had to choose extraction over a root canal and crown. This happened despite good hygiene and good gums; one dentist was floored to see an abscess with no sign of a cavity on the outside of the tooth. I've inherited terrible teeth from my father.

Right now I have an excellent professional job as a long-term contractor, and absolutely no benefits. (I can expect never to have benefits until I either become permanent, which at my company can be years in the future.) I pay full-price for insurance, but the dental portion doesn't cover more than 1/10 of the actual cost needed to make my mouth complete and healthy. I don't have the credit for it, because my credit has gone to previous medical bills (my husband and I have had three surgeries between us in the past four years), and I don't have savings for the same reason.

Dentists offer payment plans for non-essentials such as veneers and braces, but not for essentials such as cavities, crowns, or bridges. They also charge extortionate rates when compared to other countries. They're clearly in it for the money. I have tried the local dental college, but I ended up with a terrible infection and the wrong medication, so I'm unlikely to return. Someone who values themselves and their health but can't afford a dentist is therefore without hope.

I'm disturbed by the level of disgust for poor teeth, because it tells me the situation is probably hurting my career and social interactions generally. But the cost of a single crown is beyond my insurance and my credit.

If I ever have a windfall of a few thousand, I'm hoping to go to Hungary or some-such place, where dental costs are reasonable and I can get my mouth restored for about a fifth of what it would cost here.

Have a little sympathy for the dentally-challenged; we might look like we don't care, but some of us are doing our best.

Trent Reznor, appalled at his rapacious and greedy label, encouraged fans to steal music:

http://www.stuff.co.nz/4207495a28.html

Not all of thee below apply to me, but they are all reasons worth respecting.

Reasons not to use debit or credit (some already mentioned in the article, some not):

• Debit may not incur interest, but it's as vulnerable to theft (if not more so) than credit. Most systems keep your debit PIN as well as account number, so if they are hacked or stolen, you're extremely vulnerable. Since these are company-run databases, they are typically not as secure as databases run by financial institutions such as Citibank.
• Credit is also vulnerable if stolen by an employee swiping your card or hacked; it doesn't even require a PIN.
• The credit card system is designed to keep you in debt.
• If it's a slow bandwidth day, credit or debit may be slower than cash, if not impossible.
• You may be seeking to improve your credit by avoiding credit card use.
• You may live in a depressed area which doesn't have many/any banks, and so credit/debit is not accessible to you. This is class discrimination as well as cash discrimination.
• You may be nervous about Big Brother/RFID issues.
• Credit/debit processing by banks is designed to make it easy to incur late/overdraft fees. If you're extremely busy or stressed (working multiple jobs, taking care of family, etc.), you're their primary target, because you might miss something.

Note: I blogged about this in more detail some time ago: http://alexfiles.com/blog/?p=50; please forgive me if this is repetitious to anyone.

When Principi says, "QTC does no treatment...We do a medical disability evaluation. I distinguish that from the treatment and the care that VA provides," he is either being disingenuous or displaying his ignorance.

Triage—determining the urgency and type of care required by the patient—is a crucial aspect of medical care at every stage, particularly initial evaluation. Precisely because this determines the level of care to come, it can't be distinguished from medical care. To get treatment, you're evaluated by a doctor; the nature of the treatment comes from the evaluation; and the doctor will see you regularly to continually evaluate your response to treatment. If a doctor prescribes antibiotics and you get them from a pharmacist, you don't say the pharmacist is treating you, you say the doctor is. If a doctor evaluates you and determines you need treatment by a specialist, even if he doesn't determine the exact form the treatment takes, he is treating you by proxy. If he says you don't need the specialist, that's a treatment determination as well.

A medical disability evaluation is indeed medical care, in that it decides if treatment occurs. That decision-making ability is the reason doctors go to medical school, and because it requires a doctor to make that call, it is de facto medical care.