What is "Quality and Affordable" Anything?

I hear this all the time from people griping and complaining about health care. They demand as a right "quality and affordable" health care. I wonder what that means. What is in the average persons mind when they think of quality? And what is affordable? In my profession of dentistry, which must be admitted is a form a health care there is a HUGE spectrum in Quality and probably a more NARROW spectrum of Affordability.

First, if you are going to a dentist what kind of equipment do you want used on you? Do you look back with fondness to the robotic, belt driven Ritter units with the belt driven handpieces? Or would you prefer to have some more modern dental tools? How about having a laser available for you to decrease discomfort and pain on some procedures? Do you want to go back to the cuspidor and spit into a little toilet bowl next to the chair?

What if you are in need of more complicated treatment? What about implants? Would you like to have equipment there that will facilitate proper placement of the device in the proper spot? Or do you want the dentist to take his best guess?

Everybody loves root canals. Would you like more modern techniques and materials used to prolong the life of the tooth, or do you want to go back thirty years when it took a lot of time and post operative pain was much more pronounced? And how about not having any auxiliary staff in the office? Wouldn't it be fun to have a lower molar extracted by the dentist without an assistant? That would be a barrel of laughs. Well all this stuff costs money. The real question that everyone, and I mean everyone who has talked about health care has left out is this:

WHAT VALUE WILL I RECEIVE FROM THE CARE I EITHER NEED OR WOULD LIKE?

What value in lifestyle, in feeling good, in comfort, in energy and in confidence will your health care provide you? This may relate more to dentistry than medicine, but there is a value to have the best and then taking care of yourself, whether it is your general health or your oral health. The real gorilla in the corner of the room is also How much does the doctor and his staff deserve to make? Would you like a happy provider who is making a good and decent living with all the responsibility and medico-legal challenges before him or her, or do you want someone who looks at the profession and the patient base as an absolute drudgery and tries to do the minimum possible?

I for one would like a happy doctor, receiving good and generous compensation with a desire to do the very best for the client. I submit that cannot and will not be achieved within the parameters of what I am hearing from the Health Care Reform Thing from D.C.