The absence of dental coverage has always been a sticking point in Canada’s otherwise excellent universal health care system (more accurately, the health care systems administered by the provinces and partially funded by the federal government). I think there was limited coverage of sorts for the poor (those on social assistance) akin to Medicaid in the US, but a comprehensive program like this is a pretty major development. I think it’s really cool and I applaud our government for it.
It will be interesting to see how successfully this rolls out. This will not be part of the existing UHC system because there are significant differences. For one, it won’t be universal – only households with a net household income under $90,000 will have coverage, plus kids 12 and under and seniors 70 and over. Households with incomes over $60K will have a co-pay on a sliding scale of income (there is never co-pay in UHC).
Another big difference is that it won’t be administered by the provinces like UHC. It will be federally administered, with payment processing relegated to a major private insurer, similar to the way UHC payments were processed by private insurers in the early days of UHC.
And finally, although almost all essential dental procedures will be covered, a few will not. Things like teeth whitening and implants won’t be covered.
The limitations make it distinctly different from the totally unconditional UHC system, but it’s a huge step forward and will provide major benefits to over 9 million low- and middle-income Canadians, kids, and retirees.
It will be great for retirees like me. Also, all kids 18 and under are covered; I was mistaken in saying 12 and under (that’s the current interim system). Youngsters and oldsters aside, coverage for all households with a net income less than $90K is big news for a lot of families.
One reason I posted this is that I had somehow missed earlier news about this, so the announcement of a done deal when I saw it yesterday was a big surprise to me. I was, as the saying goes, gobsmacked!
It seems like a step forward. Some of the details do not seem to have yet been publicly divulged, as dentists are saying. Certainly youth and struggling elderly would particularly benefit from having good dental care. Of course having reasonably decent, pain free teeth impacts health and well-being and required care should be part of a public plan.
AFAICT, no. There’s been coverage in some European media, but not a whisper that I can find on CNN, USA Today, or other major US media. Reuters covered it but no US media seem to have picked it up.
My theory is that it’s a combination of isolationism, which suggests that if it doesn’t directly affect Americans it’s not newsworthy, and American exceptionalism, which suggests that there’s nothing to be learned here, because what works somewhere else won’t work in America.
It’s very unfortunate because this brand new rollout is a potential model for how a form of UHC might be deployed in the US. Existing UHC systems in Canada and Europe and elsewhere seem to be a lost cause for ever happening in the US.
Is it really true that seniors will be covered regardless of family income? Not that it matters to me since 80% of my costs are paid through insurance from my former employer. Anyway, it is a good move.
That’s my reading of the media stories, but I haven’t seen anything official on it. There’s certainly lots of precedent for such a policy – Old Age Security, for instance, or the provincial drug plans.
Thanks for that. It definitely confirms that kids under 18 are only eligible if their parents or guardians are eligible. It doesn’t say anything about seniors, but from other sources, it appears that the various age cut-offs for seniors are associated with the phase-in rules – the oldest qualify earlier – but it appears that those seniors with retirement income above the income threshold (or who have dental coverage as part of their retirement benefits) don’t qualify.
That all makes sense to me. It basically says, if you don’t need it, you don’t get it. I wonder if it might spur some employers and their insurers to drop dental coverage, thus offloading the costs onto the federal plan.
This sort of thing is why I was saying that this is vastly different than UHC. The philosophy of the Canada Health Act and the provincial UHC plans is simply that there’s no such thing as health insurance; health care is a fundamental human right. Dental care follows the more traditional income-test model, with the feds basically saying you’ll get it if you can show that you financially need it.
There’s an old, longstanding philosophical discussion about how and why conventional health care and dentistry diverged and whether this was ever justified. But here we are, and the reality is that they continue to be treated differently.
All that said, this is a great initiative by our government that I’m very happy about. It’s not just good for me, it’s good for our country overall. Interestingly, it would not have happened had the Liberals won a majority government (and not a hope in hell if Conservatives had won). The impetus for it was the so-called supply and confidence agreement with the socialist NDP, who agreed to support the government if they enacted certain policies. Minority governments are often a very good thing.
My 86 year old mother has a private plan, but she has a $1000 cap. Of course this week she broke a tooth which now needs removal and possibly a bone graft, implant, and new tooth. Under the new plan she would be either free or in the co-payment zone, so it would make sense to remove her dental coverage completely.
Of course, as she ages and needs additional funds for things like a Personal Support Worker from her RRIF, her net income increases and pushes her into the higher bracket where she no longer qualifies at all!
I wondered that, too. Our household income means we wouldn’t qualify, and I’m mentally preparing myself to lose dental insurance altogether for a couple of years while the dust settles. I think it will be worth it in the long term.
Well, it’s official! I got a mysterious envelope in the mail today from Sun Life, which seemed odd because I don’t have any insurance with them. But it was a “welcome to free dental care” package along with my plastic membership card.
The federal dental plan is much different from the general health care plan which is administered directly by the government and entitles you to unlimited access to all doctors and hospitals and all medical procedures. The dental plan is more along American health care lines – dentists have to enroll to participate, it’s administered by a private insurance company, and not all procedures are covered. Still, as of today I have dental coverage, whereas after my retirement, I did not, so I’m grateful for that little plastic card which is now in my wallet next to my health care card.
My mom has her card now. However, all of the dentists she has contacted refuse to take it because they haven’t had instructions from the government. So she’s just deferring her regular cleaning for a couple of months until they work it out.
Still, I think it’s kind of cool—she was among the first to get government medical care as a kid in Saskatchewan, and now is among the first to get dental insurance. Even if she can’t actually use it anywhere.
