I think the author of the letter to the editor, because it's not an article, is rather narrow minded. Frankly, there are many other factors, especially in the US as opposed to England, that create the divide in accessing care. If we really wanted to solve the issue here, we would probably do much better by pouring billions of dollars into training young children from an early age who showed an aptitude in science and manual dexterity and who grow up in the impoverished and isolated parts of America where access to dental care is nearly impossible to become dentists. Training from an early age for the position in society they will take and instilling the sense that they are being given all this in order for them to return and help in the communities they grew up in. More or less, we would ignore the wealthy asian, white, mormon, sects of the populous who would, more often than not, grow up to start practices in wealthy areas doing mostly cosmetic dentistry and not allow them into dental schools as a priority over these other students. This would go a long way to helping to alleviate the access to care problems that face much of America. We could also socialize dentistry or make all health care and health care workers into government positions without private practice as an option.
Of course, I don't think these options are good ones. I also think using the maxim "It's for the greater good," as an excuse to explain away a sexist agenda in acceptance policies would be a bad option.
I don't think conversations such as this one brought up by your post are realistic or relevant. Face it. we're not going to turn the clocks back 300 years and all say "Harrah for pragmatic sexism." There is probably a correlation between society frowning upon a husband beating his wife when she speaks up against him and has...gasp...opinions...and the rise in broken homes and marriages. Broken homes and marriages probably have something to do with the rise in troubled youths. I still don't think all that many people would say...for the greater good of the children, men should be able to beat their wives again.
You apparently want to bring forth a healthy discussion on, more or less, turning back the clock.