I see a youth biased trend here. I have goten free teeth cleaning supplies & actually posted a thread about it many years ago. We all know the importance of oral hygiene but the reality is that routine dental care & insurance is out of most of our grasp here. I am actually a clean freak & have been religious with brushing atleast twice a day for about 30 years no matter where or what I am doing. I do gargle with warm salt water (easily obtained most everywhere for free), peroxide or mouthwash depending what I have. The problem is that most responders baby teeth were still in their mouths 15 years ago so they naively think they are on the right track. Since they are probably still on mommie/daddies dental plan from work they should take advantage & get as much done now! Unless regular cleanups & timely fillings & extractions are done by the time you are in your 30s you will be missing teeth & or needing false teeth as well. Besides the obvious of choices of food & drinks its also environmental. If your out on the road/street you are probably brushing here & there but your probably eating poorly, drinking heavily & under the influences of other chemicals that rot your teeth. The problem with teeth is you only get 2 shots & the first one doesnt count since your a little kid. I believe that ones oral healthcare is interconnected to ones whole well being. Complete dental services should be fully integrated into medicaid & other medical insurances so that the dentist can give the best care available without patients priceshopping for services instead of on the recomendation of a trusted dentist. It makes me sick that dentists all require multiple visits to overcharge patients instead of being efficient in there practices by doing more work in fewer visits. When you go to a medical Doc they usually have a specific plan to treat your illness, you have the option to seek a second opinion elsewhere or accept their treatment plan. The nature of this process in a dental clinic equates esthetics to medical need. Sure its nice to have good teeth to look at but it goes much deeper. Medicaid is covering some dental care now if you got state insurance, more for children but is limited after age 21. Then if there is a problem(with adults) medicaid will only pay for extraction. This is the most cost effective method & the only way currrently that the government can control spending; if it was up to the dentists they would just continue to perform inneficient & or unecesary procedures to create revenue. The reality of medicaid is dentists will often say that they dont allow new patients or make new patient appointments 4 months out to disuade medicaid patients into accepting there bad teeth & or paying cash to get an earlier visit. This is discrimination! Why is a poor persons teeth, health or life less important than some fatcat? We need universal free health/dental care for all in the US regardless of age & or income.