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[Honeycombe8]

112. Maybe in your area it's been around. Dental ins. here (dallas) started in a big way...

in about...let me think....the 1990s, I think. Now, some people had it before then, of course. But most did not. It wasn't even necessary, really, because dental bills were reasonable.

I have crowns in the back of my mouth. The cost of crowns skyrocketed in the 1990's...maybe the late '90s. That's when more people started getting dental ins. My employer, a somewhat large company, offered it for the first time somewhere between late '90s and early 2000s, I think.

I cont'd to pay out of pocket for dental care until the mid 2000s. That was about the time that for the first time a dental receptionist asked me if I had ins., and I said no, and she said, in disbelief, "You don't have dental insurance?" The ins. cos. had, by that point, accomplished a total takeover. No dentist office questioned my ins. status before then, because many, if not most, people didn't have ins.

Dental ins. was rare here in the 1980s. No one I knew had it (adults - dunno about kids). No other patients at the dentist office had it (I could hear them when they checked in).

The cost of a crown was about...maybe $400 in 1990? I think. By the late '90s, it was over $900. The cost of an exam pre-insurance (1990s) was about $50. It's now about $200.

My dental insurance isn't very good, but my employer provides it free of charge, so that's good.