MDAC News

Effective April 1, 2022
Extending access to dental care for a year beyond pregnancy is critically important to improve health outcomes of women during the postpartum period, and children in the early months of their development.

(ANNAPOLIS, MD) – Delegate Bonnie Cullison (D - Montgomery) and Delegate Mike McKay (R - Allegany & Washington) today presented House Bill 6 to the House Health & Government Operations Committee that would mandate comprehensive adult dental coverage in Maryland’s Medicaid program, the health insurance program for the state’s poorest residents. The bill would bring the State of Maryland in line with 47 other states that include adult dental health care in its Medicaid coverage. The states of Alabama and Tennessee also do not offer any Medicaid adult dental coverage. The virtual hearing featured compelling testimony from patients, family members, and advocates who described situations ranging from fatal drug overdoses due to chronic pain to detrimental quality of life to excessive and costly medical bills due to untreated dental care and lack of access.

One by one, medical providers, social workers, dentists and health care advocates gave their brief but sobering accounts to the Senate Finance Committee during a virtual hearing last week with one common theme: They all knew of adults living in Maryland who suffered serious, often debilitating oral health problems and could not get the care they desperately needed. The reason? They lacked the ability to pay. And in Maryland, unlike 47 other states, Medicaid — the taxpayer-subsidized public health program that is supposed to help low-income individuals afford health care — simply did not cover their needs. As a result, they suffered or turned to illegal narcotics or ended up with problems so serious they had to be admitted to hospital emergency rooms, or, in extreme cases, they died from infections that might otherwise have been routinely treated.