More than 14 million adults across the United States who receive Medicaid are at risk of losing dental health coverage now that the Covid public health emergency is over, according to data exclusively obtained by NBC News.
The public health emergency ended April 1, allowing states to review Medicaid recipients’ eligibility and disenroll them from the program for the first time since the beginning of the pandemic. Around 15.7 million people are expected to lose health coverage as a result. The emergency declaration did not allow states to remove enrollees from the program during the pandemic, which caused programs to expand precipitously over the past three years.
An issue that few have identified, however, is that about 14.2 million people, or 28% of adults currently enrolled in Medicaid, will also lose their dental health coverage, according to the data compiled by CareQuest Institute for Oral Health, a think tank dedicated to oral health in the country.
The five states facing the biggest drop in coverage are Hawaii, Wyoming, Indiana, Florida and Illinois. There are six states that don’t offer dental coverage as part of their Medicaid plans: Alabama, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Tennessee and Texas. It is expected to be a huge effort for state agencies to contend with the redetermination of people’s Medicaid eligibility.
Dr. Myechia Minter-Jordan, the president and CEO of the think tank, said her group felt compelled to compile and release the data to ensure that states and public health agencies help people maintain their oral health care coverage.
“As people are removed from Medicaid and seek to secure coverage through other programs, including the private market, there’s no guarantee that they will know to seek or know how to apply for coverage that will include dental care,” she said. “And this will have a disproportionate impact on those who are lower income, live in rural areas or people of color.”
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