What happens to people who can not afford dental care who have bad teeth?

I don't know if diabetes makes things worst on a persons teeth it seems to destroy everyting else. I just happened to look at my teeth in a really good mirror & it looks like the tooth next to my front teeth has a cavity....I don't want to be toothless. Do I have any alternatives or hope that something I can afford will be made available in the future?
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One of the programs the previous person is referring to is care credit (http://www.carecredit.com). Most dental offices accept this. The other thing you may want to check is if there are any dental schools or public health clinics in your area. They will both see patients for a fraction of what a private dentist charges. The worst thing you can do is neglect any dental issues because they will not go away, but will only get worse. For example, if you have a cavity now, it probably just requires a filling, which may be like ~$100-$200. If you wait and the decay progresses, you may end up needing a root canal and or a crown (both of which may be in the $1000 range EACH), or if you ever lost the tooth, you'd need either an implant or bridge, both of which are in the thousands. If you look at it that way, $100-$200 doesn't seem like that much anymore, does it? We see this everyday. If people got their problems fixed early, they'd save thousands of dollars.
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