Free Dental For Kids

After searching the new healthcare reform legislation (here are all 2074 pages) I found the following items that apply to dentistry in the new government health program.

The healthcare reform bill introduced before the U.S. Senate would extend dental care to millions of uninsured children, originate new oral health monitoring, and train new midlevel providers in pilot programs.

The largest Change is a provision that all health insurance plans would provide dental insurance for all children.

The Senate bill includes would prohibit plans in the exchanges from requiring copayments or any other type of "cost sharing" for preventive services.

Children could get services such as cleanings, exams, consultations, fluoride treatments, and sealants without having to pay anything above their health insurance premiums.

If there are no further changes, the following benefits would apply:

• In a new "Public Health Services Track," the government would pay the tuition of at least 100 dental students a year, in exchange for their commitment to work with underserved populations.
• All Dental examination chairs and x-ray machines would have to be handicapped accessible within two years.
• The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention would start a five-year oral health care prevention campaign with an emphasis on community water fluoridation and dental sealants.
• The CDC would provide grants to research methods of managing tooth decay.
• Grants totaling $30 million for 2010 and "such sums as may be necessary" until 2015 would be authorized for schools that train general, pediatric, or public health dentists and dental hygienists.
• In a new "Public Health Services Track," the government would pay the tuition of at least 100 dental students a year, in exchange for their commitment to work with underserved populations.

• Grants would be issued for each of 15 "alternative dental health care providers demonstration projects."  This would provide therapists for children who wouldn't be dental school graduates.
• The “midlevel providers” could be community dental health coordinators, advance practice dental hygienists, independent dental hygienists, supervised dental hygienists, primary care physicians, dental therapists, dental health aides, or some new classification. They would be evaluated for their ability to "increase access to dental health care services in rural and other underserved communities."