Senator Bernie Sanders: HELP Committee in Hearing on Dental Crisis in America

Description

From the Office of Senator Bernie Sanders:

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee, today at 10:00 a.m. ET, will lead the committee in a hearing titled, “Examining the Dental Care Crisis in America: How Can We Make Dental Care More Affordable and More Available?”.

Today in America, nearly 70 million adults and nearly 8 million children have no dental insurance and many of those who do have dental insurance find that coverage to be totally inadequate. More than 40 percent of children in America have tooth decay by the time they reach kindergarten, and about half of our nation’s seniors have no dental insurance. One out of five seniors are missing all their natural teeth and cannot afford a full set of dentures, which can cost many thousands of dollars. Estimates show 70 percent of older Americans have some sort of periodontal disease which can lead to rheumatoid arthritis and cardiovascular disease.

This crisis affects Americans of all ages and is only getting worse, hitting rural communities and low-income families the hardest. According to the CareQuest Institute for Oral Health, there were 1.8 million visits to emergency rooms across the country for preventative dental conditions in 2019 – a 62% increase from 2014.

Speakers include:

• Lisa Simon, MD, DMD, Associate Physician, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Member of the Faculty, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA
• Myechia Minter-Jordan, MD, MBA, President and CEO, CareQuest Institute for Oral Health, Boston, MA
• Brian Jeffrey Swann, DMD, MPH, Board of Directors, Remote Area Medical (RAM), Co-Chair, Global Oral Health Outreach, National Dental Association, Rockford, TN
• Gordon Roswell Isbell, III, DMD, MAGD, Past Trustee, Academy of General Dentistry, Gadsden, AL
• Debra Sacco, DMD, MD, District III Trustee, American Association of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons, Chapel Hill, NC

Request Video