Sec. 3. Findings
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Congress makes the following findings: The United States must establish a nationwide and comprehensive approach to address the lack of access to needed dental care and reduce oral health disparities. Since 2000, when the Surgeon General of the United States called dental disease a silent epidemic , there has been increasing but still insufficient attention given to addressing oral health issues. The Healthy People 2020 initiative includes oral health as a leading health indicator for the first time in the history of the Healthy People program, and in 2011, the Institute of Medicine published 2 reports, Improving Access to Oral Health Care for Vulnerable and Underserved Populations and Advancing Oral Health in America , that focused on oral health.
Dental caries, commonly known as cavities, are the most common chronic disease for children in the United States. Additionally, 25 percent of American adults who have attained 65 years of age have lost all of their teeth. Untreated oral health problems contribute to an increased risk for serious medical conditions such as diabetes, hospital-acquired pneumonia, and poor birth outcomes. According to a report by the Surgeon General of the United States, students miss more than 51,000,000 hours of school and employed adults lose more than 164,000,000 hours of work each year due to dental disease and dental visits.
While the lack of access to oral health services is a national problem, those who are most likely to remain underserved are individuals with low incomes, racial and ethnic minorities, pregnant women, older adults, individuals with special needs, and individuals living in rural communities. More than 1 in 4 Americans do not have dental health insurance which is far greater than the number of individuals who lack general health insurance. The Medicare program and the Department of Veterans Affairs do not provide dental coverage to the majority of their beneficiaries, and States can elect whether to provide dental coverage to adults under the Medicaid program.
Only 20 percent of practicing dentists in the United States provide care to individuals enrolled in Medicaid, and a very small percentage of dentists devote a substantial part of their practice towards caring for individuals who are underserved. The United States spends more than $100,000,000,000 on dental care and that number is expected to rise to $170,000,000,000 by 2020. Over $30,000,000,000 dollars was spent out-of-pocket for dental services in 2008. The lack of access to oral health services results in higher health care expenditures.
In 2009, there were over 830,000 visits to emergency rooms across the United States for preventable dental conditions, which is 16 percent higher than in 2006. The treatment of dental conditions in hospital emergency rooms in 2010 cost as much as $2,100,000,000.