• Front page
• Receive this content on your RSS reader

By Chris J. Wiant

The ongoing coverage by the Rocky Mountain News of the work of the Blue Ribbon Commission for Health Care Reform (commonly called the 208 Commission) has, we hope, increased the public’s awareness of the problems associated with trying to provide coverage to the uninsured and underinsured, and reduce health-care costs for all Coloradans.

However, that information has focused on medical costs and coverage with little mention of another urgent priority: access to oral health care.

While 770,000 Coloradans are without health insurance, twice that number of citizens do not have dental insurance and, therefore, lack access for preventive and restorative services. They must wait until their dental problem becomes a medical emergency before they are likely to get service.

However, if they live in one of the eight counties in Colorado without a dentist, they might have to travel a long distance even for emergency care. And only about half of our counties in Colorado even have a safety-net dental clinic for the underserved.

Further complicating the problem, 18 counties in Colorado do not have a dentist who will accept Medicaid. And absolutely no public funding in our state pays for dental care for adults.

The human and economic costs of dental disease are staggering.

Pregnant women with untreated dental disease are at risk of giving birth pre-term.

Those with diabetes have a harder time controlling their blood sugar.

Immune-compromised individuals risk systemic infections stemming from oral infections.

Pain from untreated oral disease leads to problems with eating, learning and speech, and results in lost time from work or school.

Over the past five years, Caring for Colorado has invested $7.5 million to build the capacity of the state’s oral health safety-net providers.

Through our Oral Health Improvement Project we learned that, on average, 50 percent of the children seen had untreated dental decay, making tooth decay the most common disease among children in Colorado. In addition, 15 percent of pregnant women seen had never been to a dentist before.

Some communities in Colorado have been compared to Third World countries based on the level of dental disease seen in children there. I’m sure all Coloradans would agree that this unacceptable.

Dental disease can lead to many of the same consequences as other serious infections in the body.

However, we often neglect to consider that our oral health needs the same attention to prevention and treatment of disease.

Poor oral health combined with the absence of accessible oral health services, will undermine the health improvements that Colorado hopes to get from its health-care reform efforts. Therefore, it is my hope that Colorado’s Blue Ribbon Commission on Health Care Reform takes seriously the need to include dental care as part of an overall strategy in fixing our health-care system in Colorado.

Chris J. Wiant, M.P.H., Ph.D., is president and CEO of the Caring for Colorado Foundation.

READER COMMENTS

Obviously anything concerning health care should also include oral health care.
I understand the need to help those less fortunate, say, for example, a single mother working at a restaurant or coffee shop who does not receive health care benefits.
(Which, by the way, I think is crap because any person working should receive health care from their employer.)

But right now, as I understand it, there are several clinics and dentists offices that DO take people without health/dental insurance, especially their children. There is a dentist office near my home that advertises free care to those without insurance twice a year.

I also understand why people get so heated and angry about these things. It is exactly like car insurance. If you have it, but the other person does not, you're paying for it regardless of who caused the accident and your rates are going to go up. It's just not fair if you didn't cause the accident. So, I understand why it is a sore subject...because people view uninsured people as lazy and useless. They think they are just people abusing the system and trying to milk out free services while the rest of us have to work to provide those services. I get that.

But honestly, I don't know how we're not ALL having trouble with these things. Everything is so expensive now! I make, what I consider to be, good money each year. My pay goes up 3% to cover the cost of living every year. I am very fortunate. Yet here I am hardly able to afford the fun things. I can pay my bills without problem, which is more than a lot of people can say. I sympathize with them. Price tags have gotten out of control. My mother makes less than half of what I make and I don't know how she eats! She is in a never ending spiral of debt. She never gets ahead. She takes out loans to buy groceries, fix her car, whatever she really needs after all her money goes to rent and utilities. She's drowning and I'm sure there are a ton of people out there who feel exactly the same.
I, for one, am willing to help out those less fortunate. That is the responsibility of those who do have the luck and fortune of landing better jobs and having had the opporunities of education not everyone has had access to. If all my taxes went for social and public help services, I would be much happier.

I would also like to point out that it doesn't matter if we get a Republican president or a Democratic president next, they will HAVE to raise taxes due to the debt the Bush administration has racked up.

I may be able to handle the government giving me an oral exam to make sure I am brushing correctly, however, I live in fear of Hillary putting on that rubber glove.

Health Care and Dental Care should be in the same package.

Our family of four is offered dental insurance through my husbands employer. We have found however, that with the monthly cost of the insurance and the deductable, it was cheaper to drop the employer sponsored dental insurance and pay the dentist directly. Granted, we've not had any "major" problems with our teeth. This might be in part because we still go to the dentist, twice a year at a minimum to keep our smiles healthy.

t and Brian,

Why we will just confiscate all earnings and pay for every tiny need the people have. At first we will promise to only take money from the rich, the smokers, the drinkers, big business and anyone else with an income and insufficient favorable press. By the time the feel -good, take care of everything, don't bother to think about it policies need more money there will be more people using those programs than there are in the targeted "cash cows."Then there will be taxes and cutbacks and different schemes to make people think they are going to get something for nothing.
Or there's always the backup plan..the tooth fairy.

Ari Armstrong has a good critique of this article at ariarmstrong.com. An excerpt:

My wife and I do not have dental insurance. Indeed, we have never used our high-deductible insurance to cover any medical cost. We pay all of our medical and dental costs out of pocket (or out of our Health Savings Account, which is an extension of our "pocket"). And we like it that way.

My wife and I have both been very proactive in seeking out (and purchasing) "preventive and restorative" dental services. For example, just within the last few weeks, I had my first cavity filled (which was tiny because I went in as soon as I noticed it), and my wife had a filling replaced. Months ago I had a cracked molar repaired. We both get regular check-ups and cleanings.

Our dentist does an outstanding job. He is worth every cent that we've ever paid him -- and much, much more. We get a spectacular value for our money with him, and I am proud to pay him for the services that he renders. Now that's "access."

No problem Chris, just tell us how it will be funded? In fact, tell us how the entire Health Care Reform plan will be funded? This very important point seems to be left out of every discussion of this topic. I would suggest you use that PHD and formulate a solution to this question.

POST A COMMENT

• Columbus not the first to import violence to New World
• Au contraire, Mr. Campos, America is exceptional
• A great way to help in a disaster
• Is strict enforcement of pot laws worth it?
• Stripping down the price of health care
• GUEST COLUMN/Override SCHIP veto? No: Submit legislation that aids needy only
• GUEST COLUMN/Override SCHIP veto? Yes: President ignores moral, fiscal arguments
• History museum belongs in Civic Center