Dental care is vital to Texans

Imagine that you’re 67 years old and you wake up with a severe toothache. You can’t sleep. You know you might need a root canal or something even more invasive, but you just can’t afford it. You don’t have dental insurance and while you have Medicare, it doesn’t pay for most dental services.

This is a possible scenario for many of the 4.6 million people enrolled in Medicare in Texas, the federal program that provides health coverage for seniors and folks with long-term disabilities. It’s also a concern for millions of working poor Texans who aren’t covered by other social programs.

Since Medicare’s inception, lawmakers haven’t deemed dental care as vital as medical health care. That myth has since been dispelled.