Medicaid dental benefit clears committee [The New Hampshire Union Leader, Manchester]

Oct. 28—CONCORD — A comprehensive dental benefit for adults on Medicaid cleared a key House committee Thursday.

House and Senate Democrats had championed the proposal, which was one of the last money items dropped out of a compromise, two-year state budget last June.

The House Health, Human Services and Elderly Affairs Committee approved the bill (HB 103) on a vote of 19-1 earlier this week.

"Making available comprehensive preventative and restorative oral health care is critical to maintaining overall health, preventing pain, and suffering, and decreasing costs associated with emergency room visits," said State Rep. Joseph Schapiro, D-Keene, and the bill's prime sponsor.

The Legislature approved a law in 2019 allowing for the benefit, but it did not require that managed care organizations insure these procedures.

As a result, adults on Medicaid had received dental care only to extract teeth or if the patient was admitted to a hospital emergency room.

Health and Human Services officials have estimated the state cost to be roughly $7 million a year while the federal costs would be about $20 million.

House and Senate budget writers had cited the high cost as a key reason they decided not to include it in the two-year budget.

This bill was left over from the 2021 session and comes to the full House of Representatives for a vote early on in 2022. If approved, it would then have to win the support of the State Senate and Gov. Chris Sununu.

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