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UK Against Fluoridation

Saturday, February 23, 2008

USA - Maryland Works to Fix Broken Medicaid

Maryland Works to Fix Broken Medicaid
Programposted
4:08 pm Thu February 21, 2008
It's been a year since Deamonte Driver died of a dental infection and now the Maryland legislature is working to take steps to fix the state's broken Medicaid program.Deamonte Driver made a difference. "Right after the Deamonte Driver story came out, our clinics were packed with parents with kids who had toothaches." Dr. Norman Tinanoff, Director of the University of Maryland Public Dental Clinic, is overseeing treatment of 9-year-old Mustaffa Halim. Mustaffa has a huge cavity and an abscess on his gum.
It's hard to try to see a doctor for kids. I can't find none," said mother Fatima Khalid.
Mustaffa's mom searched for months to find a dentist who would treat him and his four-year-old brother. Even after 12-year-old Deamonte Driver, who died from a dental infection like Mustaffa's, children on Medicaid are still having trouble finding dentists who will treat them.
Driver family lawyer Laurie Norris said, "There are other Deamonte's out there waiting to happen."
In September of 2006, Norris was working as an advocate for a frustrated Alyce Driver, who found it impossible to find a dentist to threat her children. After trying 30 dentists, Norris finally found one who would accept Medicaid and would treat Deamonte's brother, but no one knew an infected tooth was killing Deamonte.
"It was actually a surprise a real shock when he didn't wake up that Sunday morning."
Since Deamonte's death, Norris has worked tirelessly with politicians and state health officials to change a Medicaid system that she says discourages dentists from taking low income children as patients. "Medicaid rates are so low dentists lose money every time they see a patient."
Dr. Tinanoff is now head of a new state-appointed task force charged to find solutions for this problem. Change is coming, but a solution, he says, is in the distant future.
In the meantime, low income mothers like Dorothy West will have to make tough decisions about the health of their children because affordable dentists are so hard to find. "Sometimes you just go without a dentist treatment so the child goes without and gets sick," said West.
"I feel like we have a moral obligation to deamonte to fix this problem for all children," said Norris.
Since deamonte's death, there have been a series of congressional hearings on the issue of dental care for Medicaid children. There is a proposal before the Maryland legislature that would increase Medicaid reimbursement fees. A number of new public dental clinics have opened up, improving the Medicaid child dentistry landscape.

Maryland is 94% fluoridated: NYSCOF

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