Oral Health Provisions in U.S. Health Care Reform

In 2009, both chambers of the U.S. Congress passed health care reform bills that contained a variety of provisions specific to oral health and dental care. In March 2010, the Senate version — the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (referred to as the Affordable Care Act [ACA])—was signed into law.

This article, published in JADA, identifies and describe more than 30 provisions of direct relevance to dentistry within the domains of insurance coverage, dental workforce, safety net, prevention and surveillance. Although the two bills differed in many details, both address oral health infrastructure and delivery of care, with particular attention to underserved child and adolescent populations.