Introducing a bill requiring health insurance companies to cover dental care instead of requiring a seperate insurance policy to cover dental care. Currently in the US, dental care is treated as a luxury only accessible for those who can afford put of pocket care or a dental policy which often is not cost effective for the patient.
Dental care is not just closely linked to your overall health, but is in fact part of your health. Without proper dental care, you can experience infections that can become septic and deadly, bone loss, difficulty eating, and more. We should propose a bill that would mean your regular health insurance has to cover your dental care and can no longer exclude it. If you have a $2000 deductible to meet, then your dental care will also go towards the deductible, and your total out of pocket.
Generally I am in favor of deregulation, and small government, however dental care is important and out of reach for so many people. Health insurance knows that they will have to increase the amount they pay out, so they want to keep it seperate. Without the mandate, they will remain seperate and keep a very important part of your overall health seperate from what health insurance purports to take care of cost wise.
Yeah, so the insurance has to charge more on average than it pays out. Basic econ 101. However if ivr been to the dr a fee times this year, lets say the flu, and another time to because i havent been sleeping well so they check me for sleep apnea and now ive spent $1500 in co pays, and costs towards my deductible, if i go to the dentist because of tooth pain, i have a whole new deductible and out of pocket i have to pay. So if the dentist tells me i need a root canal and its going to be $2800, its a whole new plan and out of pocket.
While this is true, the cost of dental care is out of reach for many Americans — even with dental insurance, coverage caps at $1000/yr, but that won’t even begin to cover the cost of crowns, bridges, partials, implants for pulled teeth, which are $2000+ each tooth. This makes it difficult for many people to get fairly basic dental treatment needed for proper health, ability to eat, etc.
This isn’t true with health insurance. With health insurance, major procedures and hospitalizations that cost many thousands are covered, after a deductible is met. This is how dental should be covered, and it should be covered as a part of health insurance, because dental hygiene is crucial to overall health and well-being,
Yes, I agree with what you’re saying. But I don’t see this as a Band-Aid, it is providing care where there is currently a void – because there is currently no affordable dental option for many Americans. They need major dental care procedures, and they cannot receive them because the cost of dental procedures is so incredibly high. Dental care is so important to health and well-being (I’m not talking about shiny white veneers, but having teeth to chew food properly, not being in severe pain, etc) and it should be just as much of a priority as many other hospital procedures available with health insurance for the rest of the body.
Have you considered why the problem you’re talking about exists and what the consequences would be - not what you’d want them to be, but what they would actually be - if your proposal were actually implemented?
It’s obvious you don’t understand. But you may some day. It’s no different than not having health insurance options, or having your health insurance pay only the first $1,000 of your appendectomy that you needed, leaving you with a $40,000 hospital bill. If the hospital didn’t just do it anyway, you wouldn’t be able to have that surgery. Have you considered what regular health insurance would be like if they didn’t excluded legs? Or maybe anything to do with your head? You’re covered for everything unless it involves your legs or your head. Sounds crazy, right. So why exclude teeth? You can have massive infections in your mouth. You can suffer terrible health problems originating from dental causes. In fact, in addition to the terrible pain, you can have such a difficult time eating, chewing, that you can’t ingest a proper diet. Which results in worsening health problems for the entire body. It’s obvious that you don’t know anyone who suffers from these issues, the fact that it’s thousands of dollars to get bridges, crowns, partials, false teeth, implants, etc. Many thousands. Yet dental insurance will only pay up to $1k on most policies. That leaves a considerable gap that those without an extra $5k in the bank can’t afford. Again, this is not cosmetic, but basic dental care for the 21st Century.
As someone who cannot afford to get my teeth fixed & who lives with daily pain and issues because of it, I wholeheartedly agree! I have dental, health and vision insurance. While health and vision are easily accessible & cover the cost of most everything , I can easily afford the co pays. With my dental, it only covers 1,000 dollars a year which is a problem when I need 10,000 dollars worth of work or more! We shouldn’t be forced to get dentures at an early age because that’s all we can afford. And personally I can’t even afford that! I live in fear of smiling, eating, and fear of my life when I get an infection! A tooth infection can quite literally kill you. Bad teeth can cause heart disease, bone loss and so much more. It’s more than a cosmetic issue it’s a HEALTH issue! And for those of us that only have bad teeth due to genetics there’s nothing to be done about it except hope that we can afford it in the future. It’s debilitating. I would love to see something like this be introduced as a regulation on the insurance companies. Millions of Americans are experiencing the same things I am, we need an option!
My husband is losing his teeth & will soon need dentures. He also has an underbite which wasn’t corrected when he was young with the surgery he needed because his mother couldn’t afford it. Because of this traditional dentures won’t work for him. He needs what they call all on four to be able to eat. It’s basically 4 implants on bottom & top that are used to attatch the dentures to. We have dental insurance but they don’t cover implants. Their excuse is that they are “cosmetic”. Last time I checked being able to eat & nourish your body is NOT cosmetic. It’s necessary to live a healthy productive life & it should be covered under regular health insurance. By the way, the cost for this prcedue is $50,000! This is totally unacceptable in my opinion.