Why hasn't the pay for dentists decreased due to the large increase in dent!

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Why don't cars cost a hundred dollars? Because there are sunk costs in manufacturing, and there are sunk costs in dentistry. In the US, it costs about $20 just to have the patient enter the opertory and sit down. Those costs are in equipment sterilization, disposables, and staff cost for room prep. That does not cover overhead or any of the costs of treatment or the dentist's or anybody else's salaries. It's an expensive activity.

Used to work for a dentist.

Why would those two things correlate? The schooling costs to become a dentist are rising, not falling. The world population is rising, not falling. An overabundance of dentists wont necessarily make the market more competitive, because dentistry is a health service (necessity) and not entertainment (luxury), and dentists don't need to compete for customers. Conversely, more people would see dentists if they had health coverage to pay for them. In fact, if more people were to see dentists, I believe the cost of dentistry would go up, because their time would become that much more valuable, dental technology would progress quicker and supplying new equipment to new (and more) dental offices would become costlier.

In short, dentistry isn't a market, it's a service, and isn't about competition, but servicing.

I'm probably wrong on many levels, but that's my blurb of logic in a couple of minutes.

Wouldn't matter if every 4th person was a dentist, still enough people out there who are gonna pay whatever it takes to get a problem sorted. Dental pain really sucks, put up with it for long enough and throwing money at anyone who can fix it is money well spent.

Dentist are far worse than lawyers, far worse than politicians, far worse than Bush, far worse than the worst man ever. The fist thing I will do when I take office is to NATIONALIZE and ENSLAVE all dentists, they won't be able to suck humans anymore.

Due to a healthier-eating knowledge, the acids in fruit for example are causing more visits to the dentist and so an increase in demand.