Dental care for needy facing uncertain future

Genevieve Allen, a fourth year dental student at UNLV, works on Joseph Guarine Saturday, as the UNLV Dental School of Medicine faculty and students put on three clinics to treat local children, veterans, and women referred by Shade Tree Shelter. The clinics are designed for people who do not qualify for Medicaid or are uninsured. The event also provides UNLV dental residents with clinical experience.

By Becky Bosshart

When Vietnam veteran Ted Mattos, who is on partial disability for post-traumatic stress disorder, needs his teeth cleaned, he goes to the UNLV School of Dental Medicine. He donated $20 for his care on Saturday, and that was optional.

When single mom Patricia McCreery needed fillings for two of her children, she took them to the UNLV Shadow Lane Clinic, which offers a monthly Saturday morning children’s clinic. About every six weeks, the clinic also brings in low-income veterans and women from the Shade Tree Shelter. About 67 patients were served Saturday morning at the free dental care clinic by 110 dental school students, staff and faculty volunteers.

“They didn’t go for five years,” McCreery said about her youngest children. “I didn’t have insurance for five years, I worked at Wal-Mart. Sure, they had Medicaid, but the wait was so long for that and things just came up. Now I want to teach them to keep their teeth right. Both my parents had dentures at the age of 25. I don’t want them to have the same.”

These Las Vegans, and about 38,000 others a year, regularly go to the UNLV programs, which offer care at reduced prices and regular free clinics for those who qualify. Could Mattos get this anyplace else? He shakes his head. He’s looked. And it would cost McCreery, who now has insurance in her job as a city bus driver, $350 in co-pays for each child to catch up on all that needed dental work.

That doesn’t add up.

But neither does the state budget. And that’s not looking so good for 2010.

Dental school officials fear that higher education budget cuts will devastate their program and the population it serves.

“We serve children whose parents can’t afford care,” said dental student Jeremy Cox. “A lot of them have cavities that are so bad, they can’t sleep at night.”

The dental school, 1001 Shadow Lane, is looking at a proposed 19 percent cut next year. It’s operating now on a $23 million budget, one-third of which comes from the state. To make state budget cuts in 2008, the school already laid off 16 full-time staff. Dr. Michael Sanders, dental professor and interim chair of clinical sciences, wonders when it’s going to end.

“If budget cuts are implemented at the level proposed, it would be devastating to this institution,” he said. “If we lose that money, faculty would have to be cut, appointments would be cut.”

Sanders would have to eliminate all his part-time employees and 10 of his full-time staff to make that proposed cut.

“And I couldn’t run it (the school and clinic) with 16,” he said. The school employs 26 full-time faculty in clinical sciences.

Sanders couldn’t teach all the classes required by the American Dental Association and run the clinic. Appointments would be reduced substantially. The school graduates about 75 dentists a year. It has 82 freshmen this year.

He wonders how putting people out of work helps the crippled economy. And he questions how cutting dentistry for the needy is a solution, since teeth can make or break an employment interview. “Someone who is being interviewed for a job, and that employer sees bad teeth, that turns people off,” Sanders said. “Right away people make assumptions about you that often aren’t true.”

Good dental care encourages self confidence and that’s integral to success in employment.

“There’s always a story I tell about a patient we had who worked in a stockroom for years, his teeth were so bad,” Sanders aid. “But we fixed him up with a pair of dentures and now he’s a salesman working in the front with customers.”

For information on registering for future clinics call the school at 774-2400. The next free children’s clinic is May 23. The free clinics are designed for people who do not qualify for Medicaid or are uninsured.

America Takes a Stand to Fight Childhood Obesity

Boston (HealthKnowItAll) - America is taking a stand when it comes to obesity and children.

Major insurance companies and health groups are joining together to provide services to help those children who are obese, and to take a proactive approach to curb obesity before it even occurs.

Under their joint efforts, initiatives will be put into place to curb obesity in children by providing access to prevention options including consultations with diatitions, multiple yearly doctor visits, and education dealing with healthy living.

More than 1 third of US children are considered overweight or obese, a fact that is ominous for their future.

Being overweight or obese as a child, can only raise health risks when that child becomes an adult.

These health risks include, but are not limited to diabetes, heart disease, stroke, hypertention and so on.

Moran touts health care initiative

By Bob Stuart

Published: February 14, 2009

Democratic gubernatorial hopeful Brian Moran made a Waynesboro stop Friday to unveil a health-care plan that would insure every Virginia child and assist small businesses and seniors with coverage.

Moran’s “Healthy Virginia: Cover Every Kid” plan would raise the eligibility of families for the federal state children’s health insurance program from 200 percent to 300 percent of the federal poverty level, eliminate the four-month waiting period for children who lose private insurance and qualify for the program and offer automatic enrollment at birth for all children from qualifying families.

Moran said this initiative would cut the number of uninsured Virginia children, currently estimated at more than 200,000, putting the state 32nd among the 50 states.

The candidate said the state could appropriate money to match federal funds for the insurance program.

“No parent should go to bed without access to health care,” said Moran. “It’s a moral obligation and an economic necessity. It’s a smart investment for the future.”

In addition to the health care for children, Moran’s plan calls for new financial incentives for affordable long-term care for seniors and eliminating waiting lists for home-delivered meals.

The plan also would create small business insurance pools to allow owners to insure their employees and allow young people to stay on the family insurance plan until age 26.

“In a struggling economy, creating jobs is extremely important, but health care is also important,” Moran said.

One in every seven Virginians lacks health care, Moran said.

A former Northern Virginia delegate and chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, Moran is locked in a tough three-way fight for the party’s gubernatorial nomination with Bath Sen. Creigh Deeds and national Democratic insider Terry McAuliffe. The race will culminate with a June 9 statewide primary.

Deeds’ press secretary, Brooke Borkenhagen, said his campaign will roll out a health care plan in the next few weeks after he finishes this session of the General Assembly.

She said Deeds “continues to fight to make health care more accessible and affordable for all Virginians.”

Borkenhagen said Deeds “has crafted innovative legislation to ensure Virginians have the right to choose which doctor they visit and the ability to purchase prescription medicines at a reasonable cost.”

Elisabeth Smith, McAuliffe’s press secretary, said he is conducting economic roundtables across the commonwealth and will unveil policy initiatives after finishing the roundtables.

Moran made noise at last weekend’s Jefferson-Jackson Day Dinner in Richmond, where he questioned whether the Democratic Party would be one of the people or big money.

In an obvious swipe at McAuliffe, Moran said he was a “fighter not a fundraiser.”

On Friday, Moran reinforced his ties to the last two Virginia governors, Timothy M. Kaine and Mark Warner.

“It’s one thing to talk about governing like Mark Warner and Tim Kaine. I was there in the trenches fighting with them,” he said of his legislative experience.