Florida at bottom in providing dental care for poor children, Pew report finds

[steve2470]

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/breakingnews/os-florida-dental-care-pew-20130624,0,2051148.story

More than three-fourths of Florida's children covered by Medicaid do not get regular dental care — the worst rate of any state, according to a report released today by the Pew Children's Dental Campaign.

The lack of care affected 1.5 million children across the state in 2011, the period analyzed by the Pew researchers. Nationally, they said, tens of millions of low-income children went without dental care that year.

Children whose families had private health insurance were 30 percent more likely to receive dental care than their Medicaid counterparts, the researchers found, even though low-income children — including those on Medicaid — are almost twice as likely as their wealthier peers to develop cavities.

"The Florida numbers are horrible, and they don't appear to be getting any better," said Frank Catalanotto, professor and chairman of the Department of Community Dentistry and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Florida College of Dentistry. "The good news to me is that I think some of the people in state are really taking this seriously."