Dental Coverage Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Dental Coverage - Essay Example These advocates claim that low-income people suffer more from poor oral health than those belonging to higher socioeconomic status, which make their chances of getting hired less likely. But there are opponents to this proposed move to lower dental costs. They believe that dentists are already disadvantaged, monetarily speaking, by dental insurances that do not sufficiently reimburse for dental procedures. Further lowering dental fees will further hurt them. And, critics believe that dentists will be forced to sacrifice the quality of their services to prevent these financial losses, which, in the end, will cause disadvantages to the patients themselves. Arguments opposing the proposal to lower dental costs or making it more affordable for low-income adults place emphasis on its disadvantages to dentists and the quality of dental care. The lowered dental fees have already forced dentists to perform dental services at a monetary loss. A current research by the American Dental Associat ion discovered that some dental health maintenance organizations (HMO) do not sufficiently pay for even the low-cost preventive oral health services (Gordon, 2013). And thus, due to insufficient reimbursements, some dentists providing services to individuals holding HMO insurance usually lower the quality of their services, such as hastening procedures, in order to avoid financial drawbacks. Thereby, critics argue that in the end the people themselves will be the ones to suffer from low quality oral care services. Many dentists refuse to accept Medicaid recipients because the repayments are insufficient. The president of the Florida Dental Association, Cesar Sabates, boldly stated, â€Å"I can’t afford to do Medicaid† (White, 2012, para 18). In essence, people belonging to minority and low-income populations suffer from more dental problems, but they have lesser access to quality oral care. Arguments supporting reduced dental costs focus mainly on the issues of employa bility and productivity. The first argument supporting reduced dental fees claim that affordable oral care services