Dental care in short supply for low-income Wisconsin children - JSOnline

"The lack of access to dental care for children and adults on limited incomes is one of the most entrenched, widespread and overlooked problems of the U.S. health care system.

It also is one of the most marked examples of the differences in health care for the poor and everyone else. Dental care is the most common unmet medical need among children. And the children most at risk - those in families with limited incomes - have the least access to care.

'Spend a day looking in the mouth of every pediatric patient who comes into our clinic, and I guarantee that at least once or twice, you will be horrified,' said David Waters, a pediatrician at the Sixteenth Street Community Health Center, which provides care primarily to people covered by [Wisconsin] BadgerCare Plus or who are uninsured."