For most Americans covered under medical insurance, dental coverage is lacking. Dental procedures, routine or not are very expensive. These procedures unfortunately are thousands of dollars. For many this is an out of pocket price as dental insurance does not cover the patient the way medical does. This leads to many Americans having poor oral health whether they have insurance or not. This has gotten to a point where one has to almost be rich just to have decent teeth and gums. Not only is this unfair and unjust but harmful. A bill needs to be proposed that forces either dental care to be affordable and fair or insurance companies to provide better coverage!
How exactly do you plan to ‘force’ such things in a way that doesn’t just make the problem worse?
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I’m one of the people who has not been able to afford dental care. I have a mouthful of broken teeth and seriously need all teeth removed and implants installed. At 61, the odds of this ever being done without major changes in policy, are slim and none.
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Dental care should be covered under healthcare insurance. Dental / oral health is part of our physical anatomy. It crucial to overall health. It can directly affect general health and in particular heart health.
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I work in dental health care and the prices can be extreme. I do the ordering and the cost of quality supplies and time needed to do good work contributes to the cost. Plus most things are single use due to standard precautions. Nothing is cheap, even to the dentists. Not saying there are no dentists taking advantage but the ones I know are just trying avoid losing money from working.
Insurances tend to not pay close to what is asked and deny a lot of treatments. We then have to fight to show they do in fact need this work done. It’s unfair to all involved. They also have maximums! Which get reached at times well before treatment is finished.
Something needs to be done to make this affordable. However it can’t lead to rushed work or subpar quality materials used on your teeth.
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I think that dental and eye care should be merged with healthcare. We can all agree the 3 of them are needed to remain healthy. There should be no need for us to pay 3 different insurance premiums to stay healthy. Medicaid pays for all of them for children. ( Medical aid ). It makes no sense for these to not be considered healthcare. And making them merge these together, it would make them have one single policy that would be cheaper than three different ones. Because think about it you’re not using some of them more than others. Adults wouldn’t really use dental as much. And I’m sure everyone already agrees, dental care and eye Care should be considered healthcare. It comes down to the simplest of explanations… It’s a body part. …
I have suggested a proposal on this site for merging all three. I am waiting for them to approve it. Hopefully people will have the same idea and vote for it. 
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