Thousands of Californians are getting set up with dental insurance through the Golden State’s Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act marketplace.
The executive director of Covered California, the state’s insurance exchange, told Kaiser Health News that 33,000 adults have signed up for dental insurance.
Although California has embraced most of PPACA, accepting the federally-funded Medicaid expansion and setting up its own exchange, it is one of the last states to offer dental insurance through its exchange. Washington State, another strongly Democratic state, remains the only state without a dental plan in its marketplace. However, PPACA mandates that dental be included in health plans for children.
Only those who have purchased health plans through the exchange are eligible to add a dental plan. Kaiser reports the average monthly premiums will range from $11 to $65. The premiums for dental care will not be subsidized, unlike the core health plans.
The 33,000 who have purchased dental insurance make up but a sliver of the more than 1.3 million who have bought health plans through Covered California. But of the 34,000 who signed up for health plans during the current open enrollment period, 6,000 have added dental care.
Although there are five insurers offering dental plans, more than two-thirds of current enrollees have gone with plans offered by Delta Dental.
“Covered California has done a very good job preparing its website with comments on how to purchase and prepare for coverage,” Jeff Album, a Delta Dental spokesman, told the Sacramento Business Journal. “Hats off to them in the third year of open enrollment.”
Studies have shown that many with health insurance often forgo standard dental care. A recent survey from the Urban Institute found that a fifth of those with health insurance said they could not afford basic dental services. Another survey showed that kids go to the dentist more frequently than their parents.
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