I think it entirely depends upon the country in which you're operating. In Canada, I can be a 40 year old man with a wife and child and think contracting is reasonable, but I don't have to worry about a 400,000 bill for a stubbed toe on my daughter.

That being said, it still costs me $4000 to get one tooth fixed in my wife's mouth, and I have 3 in mine that have been waiting for over 5 years, so Canada is not perfect by any means.

Reminder to self in next life: If you want to make the most money with the least amount of work, in the field with the slowest slowest advancement of technology, and have your monopoly enforced, for free, by the government...go into dentistry.

Maybe I'm bitter, and I'm certainly uninformed, but I would absolutely love to hear to hear someone in the know defend the dental industry.

$3000 to fix one broken tooth (if you're lucky), it takes 15 minutes, tops. Thats $12,000 / hour. At what point do people start asking questions?