My daughter has a foster daughter. This child feels like family. She is permanently placed with them and calls my daughter and her husband Mom and Dad. She feels like a family member except when it comes to dental care.
Her medical and dental care are provided through the Oregon Health Plan. The medical plan seems to work reasonably well, but dental care is set up to fail. As is frequently the case with children coming into foster care, she came to her new family with mouth full of cavities. For all practical purposes, dental care is rationed. The program makes getting care difficult. Are they trying to make so hard that her foster parents will give up on taking her in for dental care? Do they hope most kids will give up without accessing the dental care they need?
My foster granddaughter can have one dental visit every 3 months. Appointments are made 3 months in advance. If something comes up and she needs to reschedule, the next one would be 3 months later. The dentists who accept the plan change every few months so that a visit might be canceled by the doctor because he stopped participating in the plan. It took years to get all her cavities filled. My daughter tried getting her added to their own insurance, but that is not allowed. Paying cash was out of the question. She had many dental problems and dentists bill their cash paying customers at least 30% more than their patients covered by insurance. Filling a dozen cavities, crowing one tooth and extracting several others just wasn't in their budget. After some months of negotiation they did manage to work out a way pay the extra to upgrade the crown she needed to enamel from the steel one that is covered on the health plan.
As long as we are fixing health care, let's fix dental care and make life easier for foster families. Minor rule changes could make a real difference in the lives of children. All health and dental plans should be able to cover foster children in a family at the same rates as legal children with the foster care system reimbursing the premiums and co-pays up to the normal medicaid cost per child.
(Yes, I know a single payer plan would solve their problem more simply, but I think this little change could just be slipped into a bill that would actually pass.)