{"id":185204,"date":"2025-10-02T14:43:10","date_gmt":"2025-10-02T14:43:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/185204\/"},"modified":"2025-10-02T14:43:10","modified_gmt":"2025-10-02T14:43:10","slug":"5-million-canadians-now-covered-by-national-dental-care-plan-but-nearly-half-havent-been-to-a-dentist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/185204\/","title":{"rendered":"5 million Canadians now covered by national dental care plan, but nearly half haven’t been to a dentist"},"content":{"rendered":"

Health Canada is touting the major uptake of its public dental insurance program, but data shows that nearly half of the 5.2 million eligible patients have yet to see a dentist.<\/p>\n

Of the Canadians approved for coverage, 2.8 million have been to a dental clinic.<\/p>\n

The new data comes six months after the Canadian Dental Care Plan expanded to cover 18-64 year olds. So far, 1.8 million people in\u00a0this newest cohort\u00a0are approved for the plan. A quarter of them have actually used the program so far.<\/p>\n

Health Canada also now says close to 100 per cent of active dentists, denturists\u00a0and independent\u00a0dental hygienists\u00a0are treating\u00a0patients through the program. It’s a significant milestone considering initial uptake from dentists was\u00a0low<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The national insurance program subsidizes the cost of dental care for Canadian residents with a family net income below $90,000, if they\u00a0don’t have access to a private insurance plan.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The plan helps pay for a range of dental work\u00a0including cleanings, fillings and dentures. Health Canada says on average, each patient has had\u00a0$800 in expenses covered per year.<\/p>\n

Dental clinics can also “balance bill,”\u00a0meaning they can charge more than what the federal government\u00a0covers, requiring the patient to pay the difference.<\/p>\n

The Canadian Dental Care Plan began in May 2024 for seniors, then children and Canadians who received the disability tax credit. In May 2025, it expanded to all eligible Canadians.<\/p>\n

The massive, multibillion-dollar public insurance program\u00a0was brought in as a result of the\u00a0NDP, which propped up the previous Trudeau Liberal minority government for two years in the House of Commons in return for major social programs like dental care.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Health Canada is touting the major uptake of its public dental insurance program, but data shows that nearly…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":185205,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[49,48,84,392],"class_list":{"0":"post-185204","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-healthcare","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-health","11":"tag-healthcare"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185204","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=185204"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185204\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/185205"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=185204"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=185204"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=185204"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}