This past week oral health care advocates converged on Washington in hopes of creating a better dental future for America.
In Wisconsin 37.1% of children ages 3-18 are enrolled in Medicaid/BadgerCare+ with a dental service. That means that over 1/3 of all Wisconsin children are presently on some form of government dental care assistance.
This large group of Wisconsin citizens are not allowed to vote in Wisconsin. What happens when they get older and can vote? In 2010 there were 1,339,492 people in Wisconsin aged 0-17 years of age. This is out of a total population of 5,686,986 people in the state. If over 1/3 of the people age 3-17 in Wisconsin suddenly have no dental care or that changes for them it is possible that in about five years when they are of voting age they will remember that when they go to vote.
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act was signed into law on March 23, 2010 to extend dental coverage to an additional 5.3 million children in the US by 2014.
At the end of June of this year Governor Scott Walker said he will not uphold a federal law implementing health care overhaul even though the US Supreme Court upheld the law.
In a few years these children will be voting. If they are still angry about their dental care being considered unimportant and remember the experiences with government and health care they will try to change things in the future. A solid bet should be placed on a large overhaul in the health care system in Wisconsin in about ten years judging from the priority this group is being given by the Governor of Wisconsin right now.
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