Universal Oral Health Coverage, Changes in Policy

There is a pervasive trend within the healthcare industry wherein oral healthcare is isolated and viewed as removed from the medical model that treats the rest of the body. Part and parcel with this trend is the insurance industry and legislative bodies. The Affordable Care Act takes long overdue steps towards providing adequate coverage for those who were previously unable to afford comprehensive medical care. Meanwhile no reforms were made for privatized dental insurance and public dental insurance was changed in a positive yet underwhelming way, increasing Medicaid coverage from 100% of the Federal Poverty (FPL) level to 133% FPL. Limited access to dental insurance remains a significant factor for the underutilization of dental care among those populations that have the greatest prevalence of dental disease. Changes need to be made to the dental insurance system in order to be able to provide the appropriate level of care for those that do carry dental policies. Changes need to be made to the public system to reduce the number of people that currently cannot afford dental care due to its prohibitively expensive price tag. Most importantly changes need to be made to the culture of thinking regarding oral healthcare as an isolated entity that is entirely removed from the comprehensive medical picture. This paper reviews the current issues surrounding the inadequacy of dental care insurance coverage in the United States and presents a set of proposals and areas for future research to address the underutilization of needed dental care.Master of Public Healt