What particularly pisses me off is that the Kansas State Republican Party got behind this. Any support for anti-floridation is utterly unconscionable IMNSHO. I don’t give a shit about the claims about ‘no medicine I don’t want.’ Fuck that noise. If they really feel that way: STOP USING PUBLIC WATER. It’s been sterilized, after all. Often with chemical agents. Just as often with EVIL RADIATION.
When these goddamned idiots can claim to be worried about saving public moneys on cheap-ass preventative projects like this and keep being willing to spend huge amounts on “Fix it now that it’s COMPLETELY FUBAR” projects, I find their claims of fiscal conservatism to be utterly threadbare. That a state-wide party was willing to support this idiocy does nothing to change my view of the current GOP as a party of idiots, racists, and assholes. I really don’t give a flying fuck which particular reason for their support any individual might have. There is no good, rational reason for this position that I can recognize.
Can go back to a country where there was at least some lip-service from both parties to the idea of “public good?”
That presupposes that you’re brushing your teeth on a regular schedule. Even in families where the parents believe that to be an important daily ritual - the target age group (3-11) is the age where evading that requirement is all out of proportion popular. I know I skipped brushing my teeth far too often around that age, and I believe it to be a fairly common complaint from dentists.
Well, Wichita has never had fluoridated water, apparently with little ill effect.
But you’re right this is a good thing. And like all good things, it will cost money. What other program promoting the public good should be scaled back so Wichita can afford to do this good thing?
Where do you get that from? If you had bothered to do any reading about how this issue got put before the electorate now, you’d have seen that there is a perception among the dental and medical health professionals that there is an ill effect on the general health of the population.
The plan had been to seek Federal grants if available, and then pass the cost on to the consumer. The start up costs are listed in this article as about $2.3 million. Operational costs are estimated to add less than a dollar a month to residential water bills, and the higher end of that increase also includes covering the start-up costs. So, going by the 2010 demographic data I got from Wikipedia that’s about $12/year for 150,000 households, or $1.8 million annually from residential customers - and to pull a number of out my ass we’ll double that for the industrial/retail customers in the city (That’s an aggregate, obviously, and a guess. I freely admit that industrial/retail customers will have higher water usage, but I doubt there are as many of them as there are residential customers.) so for back of the envelope estimate about $3.6 million for annual costs. Call it $5 million annually to give me a fudge factor.
I realize that pain and suffering don’t matter, so I won’t touch on that.
When you consider that part of the push for this is to improve dental health for many of the poorest residents in the city one has to expect that at least some of the $25 million in expected savings in dental work will be money saved from the local Medicaid program. Which might be considered a benefit to the public coffers by some foolish people. Probably the same bleeding heart assholes who think that pain and suffering do matter.
Look, I’m not going to float that there’s some big conspiracy, but I know enough that when what you’ve got is a hammer, everything starts to look like a nail. Lawyers will tend to see opportunities for litigation. Doctors and dentists will tend to see potential public health initiatives. In general, these are good faith proposals.
But a lawyer probably overvalues (or underestimates the costs and burdens) of litigation. And doctors and dentists tend to overvalue (or underestimate the costs and burdens) of treatment. This is human nature, and it’s particularly easy to do when you yourself don’t have to bear the costs and burdens.
Now, here, you talk of “a perception among the dental and medical health professionals.” OK, well, do they have any data to back up their perceptions. Not saying their being deceptive, but two million bucks is a lot to spend on a hunch, even if I totally trust Dr. Smiley, DDS. (The good old public health/taxing authority industrial complex.)
And while you’re comfortable liberating $2 millions bucks per year from the wallets of Wichita because there’s a hunch that maybe this is a good idea, perhaps those Wichita residents already have uses for that money that they think are equally worthwhile. At any rate, you’re not sure that they ought to be given a choice in the matter.
But you did answer the question: What would be cut to pay for this? Nothing. We’ll just make everybody pay a little more. Whether they want it or not.
A few years ago, when I was living in Oregon, I went to the dentist. She took one look at my teeth and said, “You’re not from around here, are you”?
I asked her how she knew (I’d actually grown up in Texas), and she said it was because my teeth didn’t have the microcavities that the locals all had- because the local water wasn’t fluoridated. So yeah, that dentist, at least, though fluoridation is a good idea.
I believe this has been discussed before, but flouridation doesn’t have a particularly impressive scientific foundation. If it has positive effects, they’re not particularly reliable. So maybe - just maybe - you might consider that possibly they think it’s a nonsensical waste dumping mildly toxic chemicals in the water for a dubious health ebenfit.
If this is in response to my post and is your usual way of answering a simple question, I think I’ve discovered why it is that your evidence is waved away.
Anyone else care to tell me why it is that people are expected to pay so much for what appears to be little return? I grew up without fluoride in my water, and managed to make it until I was 12 before I needed to go to the dds. Two million dollars is a heck of a lot of money, the program only targets a portion of the population, and it doesn’t appear that it is all that critical. Seems the money would be better spent elsewhere.
