Dental Care

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I've spent my entire career providing legal representation to poor people, and anyone who works for poor people knows that limited or no access to dental care is one of the biggest health care problems facing the poor. As the AMA has noted:

 The first signs of some diseases such as osteoporosis or HIV infection can show up in the mouth, but poor oral health can also cause damage to the rest of the body. Over the past decade, published studies have linked tooth loss to dementia and associated it with poor pregnancy outcomes. Dental plaque can be a source of ventilator-associated pneumonia among intensive care patients. Tooth decay may increase the risk of heart disease. Diabetes can increase the risk of gum disease, and, conversely, leaving this problem untreated can make blood sugar control next to impossible.

 Poor dental health is also a severe occupational handicap. Twenty years ago the Vermont Supreme Court held that if a lawyer refuses advancement to employees who suffer from tooth loss it is liable for employment discrimination.

In recent weeks health care advocates have been pushing for the Green Mountain Care Board to include adult dental health care in the package of services required to be offered by the health insurance exchange, and they got thousands of Vermonters to submit comments favoring adult dental care.

This morning on VPR Bob Kinzel is reporting that the GMC Board has rejected adult dental care. According to Kinzel's reporting, board chair Anya Rader Wallach said the exchange was intended to “really mirror the current insurance marketplace and create as little disruption and additional cost as possible while offering some improvement in terms of how the marketplace is organized.“

 Health care advocates know that the current insurance marketplace has failed people who need health care. What Wallach calls disruption would be what anyone else would call a humane provision of basic health care.

Dental care is not a luxury, but a basic necessity. It is a gross failure on the part of the Green Mountain Care Board to refuse to require this coverage. 

 

18 thoughts on “Dental Care”

  1. I would guess that the Board is trying to make the numbers work as well as they possibly can. I would hope that, as with the planned transition to a true single-payer system, the first iteration of ShummyCare isn’t the final destination, and that dental care will eventually be included.

    But I certainly agree with Jack’s point: dental coverage ought to be part of a good health-care system, and “mirroring” the current trainwreck is not a worthy goal.  

  2. Further evidence that the GMCB does not represent the people. Dental care is absolutely essential for health – and I mean real, comprehensive dental care. Not just cleanings and x-rays.

    Part of my campaign for VT AG is to recind the VT policy which prohibits compassionate medical/dental care. This is important. You live in a State which PROHIBITS care, even when it would not cost taxpayers one cent.  It is easy to understand why this is happening.

    Please read

    http://dissidentvoice.org/2009…  

  3. Please, everyone read this and pass it on – especially to those in the Legislature.  The GMCB does not represent the people any more than the PSB does. They are not elected. We have to get the message to those who want our vote.

    NO DENTAL CARE – NO VOTE.  As Ralph Wright used to say – all a politician needs to know is how to count the votes.

    http://voices.yahoo.com/child-…

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