San Francisco – 2.8 million adults in California will lose access to dental services on July 1, 2009 due to the Legislature’s February decision to eliminate Denti-Cal (Medi-Cal dental services benefits) for services for adults. A new health care report shows that while the program’s elimination would result in only a minor reduction in state outlays, it would cause the loss of $134.5 million of federal matching funds, substitute more expensive services for less expensive treatments and preventive services, and exacerbate the state’s problems with already overcrowded emergency rooms. The report also demonstrates that the elimination of adult Denti-Cal will have other significant ramifications, including lower participation by dentists in Denti-Cal, fewer children receiving oral health services and loss of jobs, wages and economic activities in California.
North East Medical Services (NEMS) is particularly concerned about their ability to maintain dental services to their patients. About 70% of their more than 22,000 dental encounters are provided to Denti-Cal patients, of which 60% services to adults. NEMS estimates that with the cuts, their Dental Department stands to lose nearly $1.9 million in program income, which not only covers the cost of dental services to Denti-Cal patients, but also enables NEMS to serve those without insurance or the ability to pay for care.
Dr. Cordelia Achuck, Dental Director at North East Medical Services in San Francisco, explains that these cuts particularly affect recently arrived immigrant. “Many of NEMS patients are monolingual Chinese speaking adults or recent immigrants from Asia. They come to NEMS because we speak their native language and provide quality service and affordable fees. Even with the discounted fees we offer, many of our Denti-Cal patients cannot afford to pay out of pocket for various dental procedures and as a result, they may extract teeth that could have been saved or seek “cheaper” oral health services in China or resort to local, unlicensed dentists that often provide poor quality services. This cut affects our Adult Denti-Cal patients and moreover our ability to provide dental services to uninsured and underserved patients. Since Denti-Cal is a substantial portion of our operations, NEMS plans to reduce the dental department budget by 20%.”
Asian Health Services (AHS) in Oakland stands to lose over $600,000 in revenues due to the cuts.
For AHS, the cuts will have a serious impact on their dental clinic as their patients are mostly elderly, with multiple medical problems. Dr. Huong Le, Dental Director at AHS explains that “Medi-Cal is the only dental coverage they have since Medicare does not cover dental. These patients will not be able to afford the dental treatment they need and therefore will wait until they are in dental crisis. Their dental deterioration can have significant consequences on their overall health.”
According to the AHS dental front office staff: “Within the last month, so many of our patients begged us to place them on waiting list for treatment because they know they will not have the benefits after June 30. We have no appointment time available! Some patients cried when they were told they would lose their benefits by June 30.”
The California Primary Care Association is planning a rally in Sacramento at the Capitol on June 30 to protest the elimination.
The elimination should be totally unacceptable. When seniors or the “working poor” (if working, lucky!) should have to be hospitalized with infected root canals that cause emergency room situations because they lack preventative care how can we allow this to happen? To not take care of our dental professionals with federal funds as well – we are treading in dangerous waters to eliminate this basic health care measure for society. Living with overwhelming pain is not likely to create productive members in public life – how does that figure??????????
Blessings, T
Though I concur with your concern for the poor and elderly, I must admit that it’s unjust to place all blame on others other than the focused. With as little as self supervision of simple inexpensive daily oral care, many dental tragedies can be averted, thus avoiding expensive hospitalization and such.
Sorry, not true Linda. I brush, floss AND use a waterpick and still have very painfull dental problems that I am srambling to have treated SOMEHOW. The elimination is just plain and simple cruel.
The problem here is that the State of Calif. has for to long spent money on Illegal immigrants to the point that now the State can not afford to provide care to the people who are actually citizens of the is state and country. Illegals have bankrupted every facet of state run health care. Not to mention education. We need to STOP paying for the needs of ANY illegal. And provide services to ONLY legal residents. These people are the financial responsibility of their home countries NOT the responsibility of Calif. If they try to come here LEGALLY and go through the process that’s OK. But we should provide care ONLY for life threatening medical conditions and nothing more. The state can no longer provide the quality of medical/dental care to the people they have a legal obligation to provide services to. STOP the insanity of paying for criminals who illegally enter this country. It’s not FAIR to the people who belong here.
Dear “ray hansel”:
Congratulations on having the balls and the honesty to append your name to your opinions.
Which must be given the respect of ANY opinion.
But not any more than that. For mine as well.
But, I have to ask you, sir, on what statistics and what premises do you make these claims about “illegals” (not to mention criminals) bankrupting the state of California?
That’s a sweeping charge and a blanket condemnation.
Back in the last century, about midway, when both “legal” as in “carded”? and “illegal” “Chicano” field laborers were called “wetbacks,” they labored, as indeed do their present-day successors in the fields and vineyards of our Central and Southern valleys, back then in pesticical precincts and today in literally killing conditions of heat and minimum wages.
One Cesar Chavez, a mensch for sure, organized and literally fathered a labor movement that should be the template for ALL laborers everywhere, but his esemplary efforts appear to have died with him, as migrant labor continues to suffer the insults and injuries of Big Agribusiness.
As a native-born and “legal” citizen of Chinese-American parentage, my mom was born in the gold fields of the western Sierra, and someone who has paid his dues and observed the rules and regulations, I think of the imported, recruited “yellow peril” laborers on the transcontinental railroad and in the lynching goldfields and the backbreaking farmlands and orchards, and wonder if THEIR “host:” held the same views of them, as you do of “illegals.”
The state’s, indeed, the nation’s, economic travails are the fruits of Wall Street and Big Insurance and Big Fuel and Big Pharma, and, very especially, of the idiocies of the neoconnings of the warmongers and war profiteers, of the unfettered and unrestrained “intelligence” agencies like the CIA, of the armaments and :”empire”-building pirates of bomb-and-strafe, of the “conservative” guardians of the rich and infamous who prefer trillions for destruction and deny their own constituents the minimum wages of common labor and honewt effort.
They continue to insist that CEOs merit eight-figure bonuses, never mind their salaries and perks, even as the economy shrinks to barter levels.
And you want to lay ALL the blame on “immigrants,” legal or otherwise?
P.S.: Consider too the multibillions conferred on our AIPAC/Likud? Mossad confreres, and then read today’s LATimes online piece by one Neve Gordon, an Israeli citizen, who, in sheer despair, asks the world community to “boycott Israel” as the only course to a sane and decent and fair solution to the mess we are chiefly? responsible for in Palestine. And not forgetting the bankrupting and bloody “enhancement”? of the war in Afghanistan. And have you read the headlines of the continuing internecine strife in Baghdad? Compared to us, Saddam was a “saint.”