Position on Health Care Reform

Our role in the health care reform process is to elevate the oral health status of the African American community. In order to diminish Black/White disparity in health and achieve the true goals of Health Care Reform, we endorse a plan that will accomplish the following:

• Cover ALL persons and provide universal access regardless of race, gender, employment status or pre-existing conditions.

• Provide basic primary oral health benefits for children and adults to include preventive services, emergency care conservative restorative care, periodontal maintenance, provisions for the “phase-in” of complete and partial dentures.

• Make oral health promotion and disease prevention a priority, to include: community water fluoridation, sealant, protective sports equipment (mouth guards), oral cancer screening, and community outreach.

• Establish community ratings and “risk adjusted rates” for providers who treat high-risk (underserved, disadvantaged, elderly, etc.), so that these providers receive higher compensation, because the cost to provide care is greater.

• Invest in community-based infrastructures in underserved areas and provide incentives for providers in the underserved areas to develop other community-based delivery alternatives.

• Provide financial incentives for providers in underserved areas, i.e., educational loan forgiveness programs, small business tax credits, and other tax incentives.

• Abolish the existing Medicaid bureaucracy, privatize the administration of this federal program, improve the efficiency, increase reimbursement levels, and expedite payments.

• Demonstrate through legislative mandate the commitment Federal Government to stimulate and assure diversity such that ethnic providers will be appropriately represented in the ownership and control of any managed care system.