"Say Ahhhh!" Florida gets an F, again, in Kids' Dental Health
(Posted May 25, 2011 05:45 am)
TALLAHASSEE,
FL -
Florida gets an F on a new national report card that
compares how states are doing in providing dental care
to children.
The Pew Center on the States based the grades on issues such as availability of tooth sealants and water fluoridation, Medicaid policies that encourage dentists to treat lower-income children, and the overall number of dentists available to keep up with the demand.
Link: The Pew report is available here.
Shelly Gehshan, director of the Pew Children's Dental
Campaign, says states need to anticipate the effects of
health-care reform, which will be major in terms of
dental health.
"There are 14 states and the District of Columbia that
failed to improve C's, D's or F's that they got last
year. Five states earned an F, and three of them earned
an F two years running: Florida, Hawaii and New Jersey.
That's really very disappointing."
About half the states earned A or B grades in the Pew
report, and 22 states have raised their grades in the
past year. Gehshan says it's proof that, even in tough
budget times, states are finding it worthwhile to get
children to the dentist regularly, to prevent more
serious health problems.
A shortage of dentists and poor funding keeps Florida at
the bottom of the class when it comes to children's
dental health, a situation which has triggered a federal
lawsuit to increase state Medicaid funding. Anne
Swerlick, a lawyer representing Florida's low-income
children, is at the forefront of the fight.
"There aren't dental providers who are willing to take
Medicaid patients because the reimbursement rates are so
horribly low. You have kids that live in Tallahassee; if
they need some sort of specialized dental care, they're
going to be sent to Gainesville."
Nationally, the report says, more than 16 million
children from low-income families do not get annual
dental checkups.