Dental News - US decides for health care reform, sets back dentists

Daniel Zimmermann, DTI

Mon. 22 March 2010

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NEW YORK, USA/LEIPZIG, Germany: After almost a year of political negotiation, the US Congress has approved yesterday legislation to overhaul the country’s lacking health care system. The reform bill, which won the ballot in the House of Representatives by only six votes, has been a priority of president Obama’s political agenda and the centre of political debate since it entered Congress in 2009. It will extend health care benefits to over 30 million Americans who are currently without insurance because of pre-existing conditions or the lack of financial funds.

With the historic step, the USA is the last of the developed countries to introduce universal health care coverage. In it's current health care system, which was shaped in the early 1970s, coverage is provided mainly by the private sector.

“It was the right vote,” Obama said during a press conference in the White House on Sunday. “The reform plan won’t fix everything wrong with the nation’s health care system, but it moves us decisively in the right direction.”

Dentist organisations like the American Dental Association (ADA) have heavily opposed the legislation that will first become effective in 2012. In a statement released last week, the organisation rejected the House proposal because it does not include provisions to improve access to dental services provided by Medicaid, a state and federal funded health programme for low-income families.

The ADA is also opposing so-called workforce pilot programmes that they fear could lead to non-dentists performing surgical dental procedures.

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