SACRAMENTO, Calif. \u2014 Mother-of-three Erica Mendoza said she joined a group delivering more than 6,000 petitions urging the governor to protect Medi-Cal dental funding for low-income children because that funding has made such a big impact on her kids.<\/p>\n
What You Need To Know<\/p>\n
$144 million in supplemental\u00a0Medi-Cal dental payments for children were left out of Gov. Gavin Newsom\u2019s proposed budget, part of $362 million in overall dental funding reductions
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The funding boosted reimbursement rates \u2014 which are still below regular insurance rates \u2014 and without it, orthodontist George\u00a0Mayweather\u00a0warns untreated tooth pain in children could lead to broader health issues and higher costs for the state
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Dental pain among kids is also a leading cause of absenteeism in the state
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Cuts to\u00a0Medi-Cal, the state\u2019s finance director Joe\u00a0Stephenshaw\u00a0said, have been due to trying to balance spending<\/p>\n
\u201cAll\u00a0three of them, they all went to the dental office [because of Medi-Cal dental coverage],\u201d Mendoza said. \u201cI did have an incident also with my oldest son. He was in the hospital for a whole week because of a tooth infection. And it went through his body. So Medi-Cal help us a lot.\u201d<\/p>\n
$144 million in supplemental Medi-Cal dental payments for children were left out of Gov. Gavin Newsom\u2019s proposed budget, part of $362 million in overall dental funding reductions.<\/p>\n
The funding boosted reimbursement rates \u2014 which are still below regular insurance rates \u2014 and without it, orthodontist George Mayweather warns untreated tooth pain in children could lead to broader health issues and higher costs for the state.<\/p>\n
\u201cEventually they wind up in the ER, which costs more than regular dental care,”\u00a0Mayweather said. “In the long run, the state of California will pay a lot more in hospital bills.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dental pain among kids is also a leading cause of absenteeism in the state.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn\u00a02022, more than 351,000 children missed at least one day of school because of dental problems,\u201d said\u00a0Estella Kessler,\u00a0Selma Unified School District Trustee. \u201cMost missed more than one day. That added up to nearly 900,000 lost school days in a single year. These numbers are coming from the California Department of Public Health.\u201d<\/p>\n
The state has proposed a $350 billion budget that is facing a deficit of between $2.9 and $18 billion.<\/p>\n
Cuts to Medi-Cal, the state\u2019s finance director Joe Stephenshaw said, have been due to attempts at balancing spending.<\/p>\n
\u201cSome\u00a0of our programs, particularly in the Health and Human Services area, costs over time have been increasing,\u201d Stephenshaw said. \u201cOver what we would think are reasonable revenue growth estimates.\u201d<\/p>\n
That means costs have increased significantly across Medi-Cal, and state revenues aren\u2019t keeping pace. Stephenshaw\u00a0said things could change with Medi-Cal funding by the final budget.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs\u00a0we monitor all significant general fund spending, I think we\u2019ll continue to assess the program as a whole and have those conversations with the legislature and stakeholders,\u201d Stephenshaw said.<\/p>\n
Mendoza said she hopes lawmakers take careful consideration because when you don\u2019t make much, dental costs can be scary, as she can attest to from one of her son\u2019s visits.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u00a0actually received\u00a0a bill just for the lab work,\u201d\u00a0Mendoza said. \u201cIt was going to be like $2,000.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SACRAMENTO, Calif. \u2014 Mother-of-three Erica Mendoza said she joined a group delivering more than 6,000 petitions urging the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":210788,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[16492,5997,7,9,8,1570,5998,13,5999,136,5996],"class_list":["post-210787","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-app-health","tag-app-local-state-politics","tag-california","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-news","tag-health","tag-jamie-kennedy","tag-politics","tag-socal-what-you-need-to-know","tag-top-stories","tag-vod"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210787","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=210787"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210787\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/210788"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=210787"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=210787"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=210787"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}