USA - Dental care in short supply for low-income Wisconsin children

.....Lucia Alba knew something was wrong when her son said his teeth hurt while eating an apple.
Carlos, her son, isn't a fussy child. But a few days earlier, he had mentioned that his teeth hurt. This time, Alba got a flashlight and looked in his mouth. She saw blood.
Her son, 7 years old at the time, had abscesses, or infections, in two of his teeth.
He had never been to a dentist. Neither had his siblings.
"I stopped trying, because every time I called up the dentist, I would get the same answer," Alba said. "All the time. They weren't accepting my insurance. They had a long waiting list."
Alba's children are insured by BadgerCare Plus, and few dentists accept patients in the state health program for low-income families.
The lack of access to dental care for children and adults on limited incomes is one of the most entrenched, widespread and overlooked problems of the U.S. health care system.
It also is one of the most marked examples of the differences in health care for the poor and everyone else. Dental care is the most common unmet medical need among children. And the children most at risk - those in families with limited incomes - have the least access to care.

"Spend a day looking in the mouth of every pediatric patient who comes into our clinic, and I guarantee that at least once or twice, you will be horrified," said David Waters, a pediatrician at the Sixteenth Street Community Health Center, which provides care primarily to people covered by BadgerCare Plus or who are uninsured.
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