Good dental health is essential for general health and well being and dental services should be a key component of a wellness-oriented health system. It is firmly established that poor dental health leads to poor general health including increased cardiovascular disease and stroke. Yet many Australians; particularly on lower incomes are not able to access basic dental care. There are more than 500,000 people on dental waiting lists with a national average wait for basic dental care taking 27 months.
Major changes in the dental health system in Australia are urgently needed. The Greens propose that non-cosmetic dental services are incorporated into Medicare under a universal dental health scheme, Denticare.
Denticare will:
- provide universal comprehensive basic primary (non-cosmetic) dental care for all Australians through the expansion of the currently established dental Medicare provisions for the chronic illness dental scheme established by the Howard government.
- cost a total of $4.3 billion p.a. for basic dental care for the total population
- be implemented over a period of five years to cover the entire population – this will avoid initial cost-overload due to high levels of unmet dental need and ensure that the dental workforce is developed in line with the scheme.
- the first phase of the scheme would be to provide access to dental care for low income earners, particularly those on dental waiting lists.
- establish clear clinical guidelines of best practice for dental diagnosis and treatment planning to ensure that all public funds committed to Medicare are justified on strict clinical grounds.
- will be consistent with the dental care items currently covered by the Department of Veterans Affairs.
- direct more funding for oral health promotion education programs ($6.45m - less than 1% of the total public dental health expenditure)
- overcome the existing problem for public dental services of trying to treat almost half the population with less than 10% of the dentists.
The Enhanced Primary Care Dental Program (dental care for people with chronic illness) provides a precedent and informative trial for universal dental care. The scheme was introduced by the Howard Government in November 2007. It provides Medicare dental items to the value of $4250 over 2 years for people with chronic conditions and complex care needs if referred by a GP. Since its inception 429,000 Australians have received comprehensive dental service.