• The survival of "Safety Net" Dental Clinics is at stake-
  the mission of a "safety net" clinic is to serve the most vulnerable, but to survive they are being forced to rely on more private pay and regular insurance patients to stay solvent, which means fewer MaineCare patients are treated.
• Most MaineCare recipients are children.
• Clinics in Ellsworth, Bangor, Portland, Lewiston, Millinocket, Waterville, and all the other "Public Health" dental clinics are skating on the edge of insolvency because of low MaineCare payments.
• Low reimbursement rates keep new dentists, who struggle with huge loan repayments, from moving to Maine, and make it difficult for dentists who are here to accept MaineCare.
• Increased Emergency Department use is a direct consequence of lack of access to preventive care and treatment. ED care is hugely expensive to MaineCare, alleviates symptoms only, and doesn't treat the underlying disease.

LD 624 increases MaineCare rates for a limited set of dental services that:

• Give the biggest help to the patient.
• Help "Safety Net Clinics" the most.
• Will attract more dentists into the MaineCare system.

• Preventive care and early detection and treatment save $4 billion annually in the United States.
• Children who receive preventive dental care early in life have lifetime dental costs that are 40 percent lower than children who do not receive this care.
• The cost of providing preventive dental treatment is estimated to be 10 times less costly than managing symptoms of dental disease in a hospital emergency room.