The Republicans used to be considered the party to the rich, and they were dependent on corporate interests. While the Democrats were once considered to be the party to the working classes, it was no longer so. But over the last… well, for a very long time, really, neither party in actuality represented the working class. Donald Trump was born, giving voice to those working-class voters who were feeling ignored. Republicans also found renewed interest in issues that matter to them. Together with Senators. Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz, Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley’s sending a big message:
“The days of conservatives being taken for granted by the business community are over,” he wrote in an essay for USA Today. In tone, it mirrored his pronouncement on Election Day last year: “We are a working class party now. That’s the future.”
Rubio actually supported a unionization effort of Amazon workers, and the majority Republican legislators support data privacy legislation and protection for consumers that is important to working class voters.
But in California, the state in which “consumer protection” laws have gone so far overboard that it’s billed unfriendly to business, predatory practices have been allowed to run rampant in one industry – dentistry. Despite the efforts of powerful Democrat members of the state legislature, industry lobbyists have been able to significantly water down any legislation passed that would protect consumers from dentists pushing unnecessary procedures to drive up revenue, or from companies like Care Credit, which offer deceptive “zero interest” lines of credit ostensibly to cover dental procedures not covered by insurance and are promoted by the dentists themselves, in their offices, lending an air of credibility to them.
Is it really necessary to have more government intervention in the private sector or business world of dentistry? I’d submit that we don’t need more government interference in business, but when a company is in the business of having dental providers push deceptively-marketed loans to patients they’ve just told need thousands or tens of thousands of dollars in dental work, and when those dentists are able to bill the full amount of a series of procedures before the first bit of work is done and see the patient’s credit limit as the amount they can charge them, when permanent and serious physical harm can be done by unnecessary procedures, and when those patients are possibly under the influence of a sedative while making a major financial commitment, yes, some safeguards need to be in place.
You’d think that California’s notoriously liberal health policy think tanks, including UC Berkeley’s influential Petris Center (which advocates for single-payer healthcare, among other things) would be sounding the alarm and that unions would be organizing their members to fight these practices. But even years after several investigative series chronicling the serious issues consumers are facing were published, The Petris Center hasn’t weighed in on the issue. Why?
Before getting to the possible answer to that question, let’s look at some examples of the fraud and abuse that’s occurring.
One California dentist, Dr. John Lund, performed so many unnecessary procedures on his patients – 90 percent of his patients with crowns ended up with root canals – that he was arrested for insurance fraud, and at least two of his patients sued him for fraud, deceit, elder abuse, and malpractice. One shocking example is a patient in her 50s who’d never had cavities:
Lund has given many gifts over the span of a decade. [Joyce]Cordi has 10 crowns, and 10 root cannulas. Cordi also replaced her damaged bridge with two brand new crowns that filled the gap between her front teeth. The total cost of the entire project was approximately $70,000
Joyce Cordi’s new dentist says her X-rays resemble those of someone who had reconstructive facial surgery following a car crash.
Some dentists don’t even bill insurance for procedures that would be at least partially covered, instead allowing the full amount to be billed to the credit card. Eric Schattl of Neighborhood Legal Services of Los Angeles County said to CalMatters late 2019.
“We definitely see dentists refusing to run the (Medi-Cal authorization) request a lot. So then they’re guiding people toward the card early on in the process, even if they know they are Medi-Cal recipients. Even if the paperwork may say, ‘this is a covered benefit.’”
And, while patients are supposed to sign both the credit card application form (in addition to the standard consent forms), one California woman said she walked into a chain dental office with shooting pain in one tooth and left with a bridge and more than $9,000 in credit card debt she doesn’t recall signing up for – and wondered how she was approved since she was unemployed. According to her, the consent forms she signed were different from hers. The dental group also failed to bill her insurance. This resulted in her paying $1,045.
Worse, patients can end up with thousands of dollars debt from failed dentistry work. One Fresno Bee interviewee said that she had no remaining teeth.
These aren’t just a couple of isolated incidents. The investigation by CalMatters/Fresno Bee found that thousands had made complaints about Synchrony Bank’s CareCredit cards. Of these, 43 were complaints by Californians mentioning the terms “dentist” or “dentistry.” And, the Health Consumer Alliance said in 2019 it had aided California consumers with 28 dental credit card cases, and 55 in 2018, and Central California Legal Services estimated it’s handled 24 cases since 2013.
In 2013 both New York State and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau cracked down on Care Credit for deceptive enrollment practices, saying that “clients were not receiving clear communication about deferred interest or copies of their card agreements,” and that “poorly-trained staff at some providers’ offices were confused about the product they offered.”
But where’s California?
One group, the Western Center on Law and Poverty, sponsored a bill back in 2009 that required dentists to disclose that patients were signing up for credit with a third party and not with the dentist’s office themselves (which later was expanded to all healthcare providers), and in 2019 sponsored a bill through Sen. Holly Mitchell (D-Los Angeles) that would have prevented healthcare providers from offering deferred interest loan products in their offices and from accepting them as payment. The California Dental Association (CDA) mobilized and “negotiated” with Mitchell. You can access their website here (emphasis in original)
This legislation was created to offer consumer protections for financial products Patients purchasedThese funds can be used for financing various kinds of healthcare-related products and services, including dental care.
To ensure financing products remain available for patients and providers, CDA has taken an “oppose unless amended” position to request amendments that will Continue to permit these products to continue being marketed to dental officesWithout interrupting dentistry practice or dentist-patient relationship
CDA also proposed these amendments. support the financial services industry’s proposed amendments that would protect the range of financing options, including deferred interest financing.
CDA advocates for the availability of ongoing in-office financing products. We also work to Protect membersPatients and doctors Avoid any exposure to potential liabilities shifted from financing company.
It’s understandable that the financial services industry would lobby against this bill, but the CDA’s stance is antithetical to their mission.
As noted above, the academics and political movers-and-shakers at The Petris Center, an influential health/consumer policy think tank housed at UC Berkeley, haven’t weighed in on this issue at all, which is curious for an organization “focusing on consumer protection, affordability, regulation, and access to health care,” which has published research on California’s dental industry, and which has at least one dentist on its board.
Could the group’s ties to the CDA, Gavin Newsom, and other prominent Democrats have caused the silence?
The Petris Center’s director, Dr. Richard Scheffler, was named to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s “Healthy California for All” committee, a group focused on implementing single-payer healthcare in the state, and also penned an opinion piece touting then-Attorney General Xavier Becerra’s health policy bona fides when Becerra’s nomination to be Joe Biden’s HHS Secretary was under fire.
The CDA is also cozy with Newsom and was one of his anti-recall campaign’s top donors, contributing $532,000. Possibly coincidentally Newsom signed 14 CDA-supported bills 2021.
While The CDA Foundation provided $644,000 for Petris Center’s research, it did not provide any protection to consumers. The studies published instead called for greater dental coverage, or more money, dentists, and more hygiene professionals.
And it’s not that Petris doesn’t delve into potentially hot-button political issues in its research. A press conference held by then-Attorney General Xavier Becerra and Scheffler touted the think tank’s research on healthcare market consolidation in the state, which led to Becerra pursuing an antitrust suit against Sutter Health (eventually shaking them down for $575 million) and which was vigorously opposed by the American Hospital Association.
It’s clear that Petris isn’t afraid of making waves. And it’s equally clear that Petris won’t take any position that isn’t supported by the California Dental Association or the state’s most powerful Democrats – even if their silence hurts the state’s working-class citizens.
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