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Millions of Child Medicaid Recipients Have Untreated Dental Caries

Approximately 6.5 million children ages 2-18 that are enrolled in the United States Medicaid programs have teeth with untreated dental caries. This is the consensus from the Government Accountability Office (GAO). Two national surveys were analyzed that came up with this number of untreated teeth. The report showed that about 1/3 of the 20 million legal recipients of child Medicaid did visit the dentist in the last twelve months, but > ½ of those children who had private health insurance visited the dentist over the past twelve months. Thus, children on Medicaid were two times as likely to have untreated dental caries. Approximately 1/8 of the children on Medicaid do not visit the dentist, and Medicaid children were four times more likely to seek emergency dental care for problems that could have been prevented. The report also states that parents attempted to get dental care for their children, but couldn’t, and an estimated 724,000 children aged 2-18 on Medicaid could not obtain needed care.
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