CT Budget Implications Could be Disastrous (Sorry, this post may not be sexy, but it's a true cry for help)

TESTIMONY IN OPPOSITION TO GOVERNOR RELL’S DEFICIT MITIGATION PLAN

(As delivered both in written and oral form to CT State Senate)

March 11, 2010

As an employee of a Medicaid-based dental practice in New Britain, I have seen firsthand the untold stories of joy and compassion in our city. Open a mere nine months ago, we were embraced by a community of patients eager to attain dental care and rectify life-long health issues. I have had more patients than I can count come into my office, tears in their eyes, and extend not a handshake or a gratuitous smile, but rather a hug. A hug, exemplifying years of self-deprecation due to the lack of a healthy smile. The 81 year old grandmother of 8. The 23 year old single mom working two jobs and attending night school. The 45 year old father of 3, too proud to ever admit his poor self-image due to a mouth full of dead and decaying teeth. These people all entered my office and extended a hug and gratitude of unequivocal meaning after spending one or two short visits with the confines of our small practice.

These stories are not unique to our group. As you read this, thousands of providers across the state are pouring their heart and souls into a medical trade that inspires someone to not only feel better about themselves, but salvages their overall health. Studies show how a lack of proper oral healthcare is being linked to more and more diseases in today’s society. Birth defects, heart disease and blood poisoning are just a few of the sad realities of a lack of proper dental care. By cutting essential preventative measure, we are not only allowing these results, we are encouraging them.

You - as the chosen Representatives and Officials of our cities and counties – have the titanic onus of assessing the Governor’s Deficit Mitigation Plan. You - as parents, siblings and friends– also have the privilege to act as hero or heroin to the citizens of our communities by maintaining a healthcare structure enviable to many outside of our State lines. We all aim for a socially and fiscally balanced community of peers, bequest of opportunity. You all strive day in and day out to make this a reality. However, we must not follow a path of social dehumanization simply to balance the financials! Explicitly, this is exactly what the Governor has called for in the elimination of the non-emergency adult dental Medicaid program.

Beyond any vested interest in the dental state of affairs within Connecticut, I stand before you as a concerned citizen; a graduate of the University of Connecticut Business School, a member of varied organizations grassrooted in Connecticut and a home owner and resident of Somers. My contemporaries and I all returned here after travels both at the foreign and domestic levels, as we see this State built upon a foundation of social and fiscal balance, of both person and trade. Let us continue the sanctity of Connecticut’s residents, and let us maintain the healthcare system that we’ve worked so hard to institute. Without proper preventative oral healthcare measures, we will face an epidemic unknown to this State for many decades. Let’s learn from Deamonte Driver and Blanche Lavire. Let’s keep non-emergency dental benefits intact.

As a final note, let us recall that cutting a portion of the Dental Medicaid program, we are also eliminating the Federal matching funds that come in to our State. The result of this is just as disastrous as it may sound. These funds represent a sustainable relief to other cost-accruing functions of our economy. By eliminating the program, we fall penny wise and pound foolish.

I humbly thank you for your time and attention.

With sincere gratitude,

Justin T. Marti

Family Dental Management Team

UConn ’03 Alum

Proud Resident

Tag'ging Tiger?

This poor dude has gotten enough, hasn't he??? I mean sure, he had over a dozen mistresses, but on some intuitive level, didn't we already know that his squeaky clean image was too good to be true? It's like when you think you've met the perfect girl. Everything goes great for a week or two, until she shows up at your house in the middle of the night holding a nine iron (no pun intended) to your face claiming that simply because her ex cheated on her, you must be too. Wait, that hasn't happened to you? Oh well, give it time.

Anyways, we all saw this coming. Though as painful as it is for the American public to swallow, we must admit that we are suckers for priceless tag lines that get tied to these smut-based scandals. President Bill Clinton hit us with "I did not have sexual relations with that woman", days later we were all thinking twice before lighting up that Macanudo on the 18th green. Look I'm a die-hard Yankees fan (yes, I was there at Game 6 in the Bronx when we won it - I don't recall much thereafter, so don't ask), but who can forget my boy Andy Pettitte "misremembering" a conversation with Roger Clemens about steroids. Infamously stated with brilliant conviction, my good man!

The bottom line is that if and when Tiger resurfaces, most likely trumping up the "Wounded Cub formerly Known as Tiger" card, he will surely make some great one liners that will forever live on in American pop culture. Speaking of which, am I the only one who is shocked by the fact that Tag has not dropped him from their label? I guess in retrospect it's not overwhelmingly shocking, as the good people of Tag are hailing from Switzerland, where antics such as Tiger's could likely be categorized as "just a slow Friday night". That said, however, they have even gone so far as to keep his face as the poster child on web and print ads. Good luck with that - the Link is a beautifully crafted timepiece, let's just hope the next version isn't a rotating-arm Mickey Mouse-style chrono honoring Miss Howard Stern December 2007. Until next time...let's swap some watches and war stories.