Speaking here in Springfield at the site of a soon-to-open dental clinic, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said Friday that Vermont is making progress on access to affordable dental care, but more must be done in Vermont and the nation to address the national crisis.
More than 130 million Americans do not have dental insurance, according to a report prepared for a Senate subcommittee that Sanders chairs. One quarter of U.S. adults ages 65 or older have lost all of their teeth. About 17 million low-income children do not see a dentist each year. Only 45 percent of Americans age 2 and older saw a dental provider in the past 12 months. Although most oral health conditions are preventable, 60 percent of kids age 5 to 17 have cavities. Tooth decay, is five times more common among children than asthma, according to the report.
While oral health problems can affect anyone, low-income people, racial or ethnic minorities, pregnant women, older adults, and people who live in rural areas have the hardest time getting to see a dentist. Unless the situation is addressed it is likely to get worse. At a time when there are nearly 10,000 too few dental providers in the United States, dental schools are graduating fewer new dentists than the number who retire each year.
In Vermont, Sanders said, there has been significant progress. Over the last six years, six new dental clinics have opened at Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs). Within the last year, a new facility at Ludlow, Vt. was opened by the Springfield Medical Care Systems and another clinic will open in Springfield in the future. Altogether, 10 dental clinics will serve more than 25,000 Vermonters at health centers which accept Medicare, Medicaid, private insurance and allow patients to pay on a sliding scale depending on their income.
In addition to expanding dental access at community health centers, an effective way to address the problem is to provide dental care in schools. "Putting dental clinics in schools is a real opportunity to address some of the serious problems we have been talking about," Sanders said.
Sanders is also drafting legislation he plans to introduce in the Senate to address the national crisis. His bill would:
- Expand comprehensive dental coverage to millions of Americans through Medicare, Medicaid, and the Veterans Administration;
- Increase access for dental services, by increasing funding for community health centers, school-based clinics and mobile clinics;
- Encourage states to increase reimbursement rates and lower the administrative challenges with Medicaid to attract providers;
- Address the underlying shortage of providers by expanding the National Health Services Corps scholarship program for oral health professionals, creating an oral health provider loan program, and integrating oral health into overall health by providing oral health education to non-oral health providers.
This is such a key element to a comprehensive, integrated system of health care. Poor dental health contributes to other diseases like heart disease and makes Diabetes more difficult to control.
ReplyDeleteGo Bernie.
Go away Tony. Oh, that's right, you already did!
DeleteVitamin D is better at preventing cavities than fluoride. Get more sun, people!
ReplyDeletenaturalsociety.com/vitamin-d-better-than-fluoride-at-cavity-prevention/
wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2009/03/reversing-tooth-decay.html
Sanders never misses a photo op!
ReplyDeleteCare to guess how many of those "low-income people" own a big screen TV, smart phone, ATV, and have cable TV, internet service, and a $500 tattoo?
ReplyDeleteRiding around yesterday was surprised how many Help Wanted signs I saw at restaurants, retail stores and auto dealerships. The issue is not lack of access to healthcare but ambition.
Screw the slackers, but protect their unfortunate children. And we can all count on Bernie to never miss an opportunity to pander to these parasites encouraging them to play the victim.
"IT'S AN OUTRAGE!"
AMEN!!!
DeleteGreat ideas. Many thanks..
DeleteLook for Dentist in Newmarket.
I would like to begin by stating how people judge people without even knowing them or how they got things. Here is my TRUE story: I have worked since I was 14. Worked real hard and know many trades.. If given the opportunity to work without a degree and use the knowledge I have, I would do it, in a heartbeat... Anyways, back on topic. I worked for years, Then some unfortunate bad things started happening. Being a single mother, I tried really hard to keep working and not get fired for having to take time off for my child. Employers want people to put their work before the kids!! When the real bad stuff hit, I got fired for taking care of my child. After that, I barely found any work, but did work when I got the chance and I still do. I am not playing the victim here either. I know some of the bs in my life, maybe could've been prevented, but life is one big lesson and I will get it right. I am blaming employers for their lack of compassion during trying times, not all, just the ones that threaten your job because your child was hurt.. Do you see what I am saying or am I falling on deaf ears?? I am currently trying to get my self back together and back working, although I do volunteer to earn my grant, plus I am raising 2 children. So, I am far from lazy. I am sorry to say but Yes, I have a 63" big screen tv. My brother needed a place to store it and I needed a tv, so that is why I have one. It isn't mine. Should I not use it because I am low income? No, I don't have cable and internet is wireless. Tats? No thanks, I can live without those. About the phone, yes, I use a smart phone and prepay when I can. So, just to be fair maybe judging people on what they have is never a good idea. I paid nothing for my brothers tv, have no cable to use with it, just my old DVD collection I have collected throughout my working years and the DVD player, our good friend gave to us when he upgraded his. So, not everyone on welfare is misspending their grants.. All my grant goes to rent and bills. Not all of us are a "parasite" or "slacker". Some of us just had a run of bad luck. And it isn't easy for most of us. Getting back to being the working mom I want to be takes a lot of work especially when their is no vehicle involved and daycare openings are slim.. Just some things to think about.
ReplyDeleteThank you for responding. You were much nicer then I would have been. You are doing an awesome job. Being a single parent is tough but children are everything.
DeleteSo your employer should have paid you for not showing up for work? I don't get it. Where's the father, the family? And then you have a second child????
DeleteNo, I don't think my employer should have paid me for not showing up, but if my kids are sick, they are sick. I don't feel I should've been fired or even threatened to be fired, because I have to take a day off for my children. When I was there, I gave 110% and feel it is unfair that single mothers have to choose work or kids? My kids will always come first. I am not with the father of my first child. He is an alcoholic, so I left him when she was young. I didn't want my child growing up in that environment. Not that I have to explain anything to you 9:33 anon. And yes, I am with my second childs father still and he DOES work and we report our earnings to our worker and we will soon be off of assistance as I plan on working again real soon. All I was saying is that a lot of people got stuff pre-welfare and still have these things and others had unfortunate life altering situations that made it so they can't work. Not by their choice. I just feel people shouldn't be so quick to judge people by a few bad apples out there that are lazy and such. Most of us do not like being on state assistance. But it is a choice that some of us had no choice to make at the time. Thanks Let KARMA take care of them! I am a very nice person and I like to reason with people about things vs. fighting with them. Some people are just ignorant to the fact that life can change for the better or worse at any given moment and they may need these services and what are they gonna do if and/or when that happens?
DeleteWonders, you have to understand this is how the system is supposed to work: You are a disposable unit in the marketplace and your children are resource sinkholes. You are supposed to work for minimal wage in order for your employer to stay afloat. He/she has gone so far out on a limb to build and/or expand the company, if the creditors won't let him get reasonable terms, he HAS to can you, or everybody goes down. Then he joins you at the bottom. Then he would have Anonymous dumping on him as well.
DeleteAnonymous, meanwhile, deals with the stresses in her life by telling everybody, "At least I'm not as bad as Wonders!" She doesn't realize that it's in her benefit to stand by you, to see that all children get good day care, that all working mothers get a livable wage, that all employers get protection against Wall Street. She doesn't realize how diminished she is by her set of mind.
The working poor-- and as a mother, you are definitely working hard and for free-- are incredibly tough people. So tough, in fact, that they don't recognize for what it is the great pain which is inflicted on them when they try to make a decent life. The well-off recognize pain when it hits them, and they know they can't handle it. So they set about to end it.
I agree with Chuck, we tend to think of people and buildings as disposable. It happens when society somehow gets the idea that balance sheets will inevitably lead us to the correct allocation of resources. Instead balance sheet economics has resulted in all the manufacturing moving to China where they truly have disposable people.
DeleteWould Bernie pleae tell us his defintion of "affordable" dental care. It's the same old tripe. Affordability to Bernie is merely code fo "FREE" to his constituency of takers. Many of us grew up of modest means, without dental insurance, but our parents saw to it that we received treatment and paid for it out of their own pockets. If that meant we drove an older car, didn't have a state of the art TV, or had to shop at discounters and wear humble attire, that's what we did. But for the last 40 years enablers like Bernie have done all they can to extinguish pride in America by advocating for handouts of all means. The observation that this snake doesn't miss a photo-op is spot on. He and his liberal/progressive friends have done all they can to stymie economic development in Vermont, knowing full well that by doing so they can create greater dependency on government and more votes for themselves. The man is a disgrace to the state and the nation.
ReplyDeleteanon 6/4/12 9:41 am
DeleteYou are the type of person that would throw underprivileged under freight trains and call it cleaning the up society. Check your roots your tree will have sad branches if you can figure that out.
Please explain your definition of, "underprivileged."
DeleteAnonymous, "underprivileged" is a person who was never provided a decent education because the voters turned down too many school budgets, who never had a decent family life because the parents never learned a better way of parenting, who never learned that he could trust his feelings, who never realized that he could always find someone who would help him through a problem, who never was allowed to explore the range of his potential and who never was given a chance to learn safely from his mistakes.
DeleteYour parents grew up in an era where we had a strong a vigorous middle-class thanks in part to the fact that FDR had stepped in and dealt with the massive income polarity that had occurred in the United States, and because Europe and Japan had been bombed into non-production. Now our middle-class is quickly vanishing, the merchant class is completely gone from all but some areas in places like Vermont, and the Union scale jobs that we used to have here have all been moved to China thanks to all of the free trade agreements that we have entered into.
Delete