Dental Insurance

Dental care, except for that resulting from traumatic injury, is excluded from coverage by health insurance policies and covered by separate dental insurance policies, which are less prevalent than health insurance plans. From the patient’s perspective, this does not make sense. Problems with dental health can affect nutrition and general health in other ways; for example, periodontal disease is a risk factor for stroke. Having separate medical and dental insurance policies increases administrative costs. Therefore, it would make sense to cover at least preventative and restorative dentistry, perhaps even other non-cosmetic dentistry (ex, orthodontia to correct significant bite problems), as part of the single-payer plan advocated herein.