SOMETHING ROTTEN IN DENTAL CATCH-UP
The Howard government has suddenly rediscovered low income earners needing urgent dental care but has responded by extending a programme that will do little to help the 650-thousand people on waiting lists - a bottleneck it created.
Theres something rotten in this election year game of dental catch-up, Democrats leader and Health spokesperson Senator Lyn Allison said today. Ten years ago the Howard government shirked its responsibility for dental care by walking away from the Commonwealth Dental Scheme. Today its scrambling to fix the result hundreds of thousands of Howards battlers who now need dental treatment urgently because theyve been unable to afford care for 11 years.
The dental extension to the Medicare Enhanced Primary Care scheme for people with chronic and complex conditions in the Budget is filling just one of the many cavernous gaps in dental services.
The Democrats are calling for specific funding for low income people to get access to a subsidy or rebate for basic dental care not just those whose neglect has left them with complex and chronic conditions.
Patting yourself on the back for trying to resuscitate a scheme you killed off ten years ago is not good enough, Senator Allison said. The Howard government must commit properly to public dental funding. Waiting until people are acutely and chronically ill before intervening means they suffer and the cost of treatment rises. It is a harsh, self defeating policy.
