About Mary Otto
Mary Otto, a Washington, D.C.-based freelancer, is AHCJ's topic leader on oral health and the author of "Teeth: The Story of Beauty, Inequality, and the Struggle for Oral Health in America." She can be reached at mary@healthjournalism.org.
State and federal policymakers should take steps to make dental benefits less costly and more widely available under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) according to a panel of experts convened by the nonprofit National Academy for State Health Policy.
While oral health advocates were heartened to see pediatric dental benefits included among the health reform law’s essential health benefits (EHB), the task of making them available on state marketplaces and getting consumers to buy them has proven to be complicated.
Dental benefits have traditionally been sold separately from other types of health insurance, and the “ACA and subsequent federal guidance treat pediatric dental benefits differently from the other EHB categories, creating unique challenges in implementing the vision of a guaranteed pediatric dental benefit,” concludes the experts’ report, released today. Continue reading →
Mary Otto, a Washington, D.C.-based freelancer, is AHCJ's topic leader on oral health and the author of "Teeth: The Story of Beauty, Inequality, and the Struggle for Oral Health in America." She can be reached at mary@healthjournalism.org.