On the one year anniversary of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), it is important to look back on the countless hours of advocacy on the part of the dental, child health, and other advocacy communities that resulted in a paradigm shift in how the federal government views oral health.  The inclusion of a pediatric dental benefit in the essential benefits package and more than 18 other specific oral health provisions focused on early intervention, prevention, and disease management marked an unprecedented commitment by Congress to make oral health a national priority.

 

While the Children's Dental Health Project looks forward to the implementation of the pediatric dental benefit, we remain deeply concerned about the many opportunities provided by ACA that may potentially be lost as a result of the current budget climate.  ACA's oral health and dental care provisions are not a loose potpourri of independent initiatives, but rather represent a coherent integrated set of system improvements aimed at solving a major health problem and yet these critical investments are not likely to be made any time soon without the continued advocacy of every individual and organization that fought so hard to pass ACA a year ago.

   

The potential benefits of these provisions are manifold: better overall health at lower cost; greater health equity; enhanced capacity for millions of children to grow, eat, play, and learn; improved general health throughout the lifespan; and, as adults, improved employability and productivity, lower costs to the US military for remedial care of inductees, and potential reductions in premature births.

 

While this vision of the future is possible, it is only attainable if the oral health provisions are fully funded and implemented as a comprehensive approach to improving the oral health system. This fulfillment cannot be realized without your continued effort and support.

 

While pursuing funding for critical ACA provisions such as the dental caries disease management grant program and the oral healthcare prevention education campaign, CDHP is also working closely with national organizations to hold harmless existing federal funding for oral health programs and initiatives.

Now is the time to contact your Members of Congress as well as your state legislators to educate them on the importance of investing in oral health.  Convey to your policymaker a very simple message that too often gets overlooked: that oral health is essential to overall health. Urge Congress to fulfill the promise of ACA by funding cost-effective prevention, oral health promotion, and disease management, and to hold harmless the many critical oral health programs that are currently at risk for budget cuts and reductions in services.