Since the 112^th Congress convened in January, they have been embroiled in  negotiations over the Fiscal Year 2011 budget which should have been enacted in October of 2010.   This week Congress passed and President Obama signed a continuing resolution that will allow the federal agencies to operate only through March 18th. This stop-gap measure includes $4 billion in spending cuts, forecasting the federal budget crunch that lies ahead.

 

The House's version of its FY 11 spending bill includes significant cuts to the federal budget ($61 billion) while the  President's recently released budgetforFY 12 reduces spending across the Department ofHealth and Human Services, including a number of oral health programs. Rolling back or eliminating funding for these initiatives would undo much of the hard work the dental community and the federal government has accomplished in the past decade

 

While it is critical that we continue to work together to ensurefull funding and implementation of the oral health provisions in the Affordable Care Act (ACA), it is equally important to protect existing federal initiatives and programs on oral health.Unfortunately, the President's budget not only fails to advance the provisions authorized by ACA, but also makes reductions across the board to most federal agencies including the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and the Maternal and Child Health Bureau (MCHB). In addition to reductions on the discretionary spending side, oral health is vulnerable as states look for ways out of Medicaid obligations.  As advocates for oral health have witnessed for decades, dental benefits are often the first to be dropped during times of budget belt tightening.

 

We have long known that modest investments in oral health prevention such as those made through CDC, HRSA, and the oral health coverage provided by Medicaid and CHIP are the smart, cost effective choice.  It is more important than ever for the oral and child health communities to come together and voice their concerns to both federal and state policymakers on the foolishness of balancing their budgets by reducing low cost and cost effective oral health benefits and programs.

Now is the time to contact your legislators at both in Congress and at the sate level to educate them on the importance of investing in prevention, the fact that oral health of our children is essential to their overall health, and to encourage them to hold harmless the many critical oral health programs that would be crippled by the proposed budget cuts and reductions in services.