SQJ Taipei

Socialized medicine provides the world with numerous horror stories… but I’m big enough to admit that I shake my head in amazement at how well it works out for me sometimes.

Maybe Taiwan’s socialized medicine program will prove to be the world’s first successful plan, but only time will tell. It is still new here and the funds are still available. I’m not going to go into it all as info on all sides is easily available… I’m just posting this to show you what I got for NT$50 last week. That’s a NT$1 coin in the picture… about the size of the Lincoln penny.

Yeah… that’s my top right wisdom tooth. I’ve been told for years that they’ll need to come out at some point, but no dentist ever said “now” so I just kept doing my best to reach back and brush those big guys.

At a recent dentist appointment, finally a dentist said that the time had actually come. They’ll all need to come out but we started with the top right because it seemed like the right thing to do… not to mention that we try to be top notch people.

I think maybe our dentist gives us a missionary discount… I think this is normally NT$150 (about US$5) but I paid NT$50 (about US$1.50). But I’ll tell you what I told them when they told me it would cost me NT$50… YOU’VE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME. That NT$50 got me some very nice anasthetic and clean dental tools and the talents of a highly skilled dentist. If you doubt her skill, check out the curve on that tooth and notice that she didn’t break it.

I’ll get the others pulled out over the next few months.