Congressman Mike Simpson introduced the Children’s Dental Health Improvement Act of 2007, H.R. 1781 this week. The bill will improve coverage of dental services and improve access to dentists trained in children’s dentistry.

Children ranging from 5 to 17 years of age are five times more likely to not have proper dental care than children who experience asthma and seven times greater than hay fever. A primary reason is that millions of low-income children either do not have insurance coverage for dental care or cannot receive such care because families can’t cover the co-pays.

“Lack of dental care is the most prevalent unmet health need among our children,” said Simpson. “Tooth decay and other dental diseases often lead to other, more severe health-related issues in children, you could even say it is at the ‘root’ of the problem.”

H.R. 1781 addresses many of the concerns in children’s dental care and if enacted would help millions of kids lead healthier lives. Specifically it:

Improves Delivery of Pediatric Dental Services under Medicaid and SCHIP by providing funding for administrative resources for States to develop programs, analyze data, and educate providers in order to improve denial care delivery.

Corrects Medicare Graduate Medical Education Payments for Dental Residency Training Programs by exempting dental residency training from the rolling average method used to calculate the number of full-time equivalent residents for Medicare GME reimbursements.

Improves Delivery of Pediatric Dental Service Under Community Health Centers, Public Health Departments and the Indian Health Service by authorizing $40 million in annual grants for FY2008-FY2012 to improve hiring and retention of dental providers.

Improves Oral Health Promotion and Disease Prevention Grants through a five step process that will improve oral health awareness and reduce the incidents of oral health disease.