HHS Research Department Highlights Dental in Medicaid Expansion Report

In an Issue Brief
released on June 20, the Health and Human Services (HHS) Office of the
Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation (ASPE) reviewed the
effects of the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) Medicaid expansion in 2014
and 2015.

The Brief focuses on the effects of expansion on health coverage and access and highlights the following dental impacts:

• Dental care:
  cost related barriers to dental care fell from 30 percent in 2013 prior
  to Medicaid expansion to 25 percent in 2014 post Medicaid expansion.
  (page 6)
• Medicaid
  expansion may be reducing cost-related barriers to needed dental care.
  In 80 percent of expansion states, Medicaid provides at least some
  coverage for outpatient dental services.¹ (page 7)
• Nasseh, Wall,
  and Vujicic (2015) found that for adults with income below 100 percent
  Federal Poverty Level (FPL), cost related barriers to dental care fell
  from 30 percent in 2013 prior to Medicaid expansion to 25 percent in
  2014 post Medicaid expansion.² (page 7)

¹“Medicaid Adult Dental Coverage,” NASHP, April 2015, http://www.nashp.org/map-of-current-adultdental-coverage/.

²Kamyar
Nasseh, Tom Wall, and Marko Vujicic, “Cost Barriers to Dental Care
Continue to Decline, Particularly Among Young Adults and the Poor,”
Health Policy Institute, October 2015