Dental-care program overbudget? That should be expected

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In less than 18 months, the federal government has messed up its dental program.

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A 2023 survey by OurCare estimated that 6.5 million people in Canada were without a primary care physician.

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Do you want to have that be the case with dental care?

According to Blacklocks Reporter: “A federal dental-care plan has gone 50% over budget. The Department of Health acknowledged it underestimated the volume of claims now expected to top $4 billion this year.

“Projections indicate demand will be higher this year as many Canadians have foregone dental care given the cost,” Ryan Higgs, chief financial officer for the Health Department, testified at the Senate national finance committee. “It is anticipated this demand will decline in future years once immediate needs have been treated.”

Concerns that employers might cut coverage

Why would it decline? Once government decides to take on something like dental care, why would they not do what they did with health care — which is to grow the program, not limit it.

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Sen. Krista Ross said, “There was a concern businesses might curtail, cut off or lower their coverage for employees in their own corporate dental plans. These are people who do have dental coverage but may lose it.”

Of course, she is right. Why wouldn’t they? I have dental coverage at work as part of my benefits plan, but if my employer and the health insurance company see that the government is taking on more and more dental coverage, it would only make sense for them to drop it from my insurance.

“If that were to happen, it would seem to me there would be increased costs to the dental program that were unanticipated because I think your projections were based on people who didn’t have dental coverage,” said Ross. “These are people who do have dental coverage but may lose it.”

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Naive to expect program won’t eventually become universal

How is that unanticipated? It should be expected.

Lynne René de Cotret, assistant deputy health minister said, “We’re only one year and seven months in. We started off with the seniors who were retired. Now we’ve onboarded the 18- to 64-year olds, the working population. We are watching.”

Someone said to me that not all dentists are opting into the program, his point being that would keep the program from becoming universal.

I think he is being naive. The government doesn’t like competition.

The current dental program subsidizes dentistry for Canadian tax filers without private insurance or workplace plans whose household income is below $90,000 a year. Some six million people have qualified to date.

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Government’s allergic to cutting costs

If I ran a company, I would get all my employees who have a household income lower than $90,000 off the dental benefits plan.

The Toronto Star reported people moving out of Toronto because $200,000 a year isn’t enough, they say, to live in this city. Why wouldn’t those people support raising the limit or perhaps eliminating it and going to universal dental along with universal health care?

When have we seen a government program not grow?

It is only when a program becomes universal, when the government has crowded out or eliminated the competition, that they then underfund it.

If universality guaranteed health care, we wouldn’t have millions without a doctor and the longest wait times compared to peer countries.

Is that what we want for dental?

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