One of Nine States to Receive an "F" grade
Florida is failing to ensure the dental health needs of its children, according to a report released by the Pew Center on the States. The Cost of Delay: State Dental Policies Fail One in Five Children, released with support from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation and the DentaQuest Foundation, grades each state's policy responses to the urgent challenges in dental health among America's children.
Florida received an "F" grade because it met two of the eight policy benchmarks in Pew's analysis. Only 24 percent of the state's Medicaid-enrolled children received dental services in 2007, making Florida one of just three states (joined by Delaware and Kentucky) where less than a quarter of Medicaid-enrolled children accessed dental services. Pew calculates that the Sunshine State faces a severe workforce shortage and needs at least 750 dentists – almost one tenth of all of the new dentists needed nationwide – to provide care to unserved areas.
"Florida's policy makers need to do more to expand dental care to reach more children," said Shelly Gehshan, director of the Pew Children's Dental Campaign. "By enacting a handful of effective policies, Florida can help eliminate the long-term health and economic consequences of untreated dental disease among kids."
February is National Children's Dental Health Month. Nationwide, an estimated one in five children, or 17 million, goes without dental care each year and two thirds of states do not have key policies in place to ensure proper dental health and access to care for children.
Pew scored all 50 states and the District of Columbia, using an A-F scale, on whether and how well they are employing eight proven policy solutions at their disposal to ensure dental health and access to care for children. These policies fall into four categories: cost-effective ways to help prevent problems from occurring in the first place; Medicaid improvements that enable and motivate more dentists to treat children; new workforce models that expand the number of qualified dental providers; and gathering data to gauge progress and improve performance.
Six states merited "A" grades: Connecticut, Iowa, Maryland, New Mexico, Rhode Island and South Carolina. These states met at least six of the eight policy benchmarks and had policies in place that met or exceeded the national performance standards. Eight states and Colorado received a grade of "B": Alaska, Idaho, Illinois, Maine, New Hampshire, Ohio, Texas and Washington. Twenty states received a grade of "C" because they met four or fewer of the eight policy benchmarks. Six states and the District of Columbia earned a "D" grade: Alabama, Indiana, Mississippi, Montana, Nevada and Utah. Florida and eight other states earned an "F," meeting only one or two policy benchmarks: Arkansas, Delaware, New Jersey, Hawaii, Louisiana, Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Wyoming. No state met all eight targets. New Jersey ranked lowest in the nation, meeting only one benchmark.