Medicaid Cuts Impact Immigrant Dental Care

The State of California intends to impose a ten percent rate reduction to dental services and a vast array of medical services, including: adult physician services, adult clinic services, optometry services,  non-emergency medical transportation, emergency medical transportation, pharmacy services and

drugs, the services provided by adult day health care centers and the services provided by intermediate care facilities.

But this will certainly adversely affect the emergency Medicaid dental care of illegal aliens.

Because immigrants are so often uninsured, out-of-pocket health care costs are higher than those paid by the insured, making immigrants less able to pay for the care they need. Other factors, like language barriers, also impair immigrants' access to and the quality of medical care they receive. The net result is that immigrants are much less likely to use primary and preventive medical services, hospital services, emergency medical services, and dental care than are citizens, even after controlling for the effects of race/ethnicity, income, insurance status, and health status.

Elderly immigrants, though often ineligible for Medicare because they did not work in the United States for a sufficient number of years to qualify for it or Social Security, may still be eligible for Medicaid if they are poor enough and meet other criteria.

Immigrants, both legal and unauthorized, often rely on a patchwork system of safety-net clinics and hospitals for free or reduced-price medical care, including state- and county-owned facilities, as well as charitable and religiously affiliated facilities.