Public Attitudes About Access to Comprehensive Dental and Orthodontics Services for Medicaid Beneficiaries

Many Americans lack dental coverage and cannot afford dental care. Medicaid generally only requires comprehensive dental coverage for children. Little is known about public attitudes about Medicaid oral health benefits. We fielded a national survey (N=5,784) to assess whether Americans believe that pediatric and adult Medicaid beneficiaries should have access to comprehensive oral health services. The survey contained an experiment with various informational treatments. We found no differences across the treatments. Analysis of the pooled data in unadjusted and adjusted models indicated that Americans were broadly supportive of comprehensive dental access for both children and adults, and, to a lesser degree, orthodontic services, favoring children over adults. We identified consistent differences based on partisanship, ideology, racial resentment, and to a lesser degree, gender, insurance type, race and ethnicity, and age. Our findings are a first step towards better understanding public attitudes about oral health access for Medicaid beneficiaries.