Turns out the multibillion-dollar Canadian dental care plan leaves out 4.4M uninsured people
The Canadian Dental Care Plan (CDCP) isn’t as inclusive as it seems, according to a new report released by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA) on Wednesday.
As the multibillion-dollar national dental care plan continues its rollout, the report reveals that the program “is not universal,” leaving out 4.4 million uninsured Canadians.
Ottawa has invested $13 billion over five years to implement the CDCP.
However, the CCPA says the federal government would need $1.45 billion more than the $3.3 billion budgeted for 2025 to 2026 to create a truly universal dental care program.
— @policyalternatives (@ccpa) January 17, 2024
Its point of contention is the federal insurance program’s eligibility requirements.
We are currently in phase two of the rollout, which is when the program became actual insurance instead of the cash benefit for children under 12 in the first phase.
Regardless of the phase, only uninsured Canadians with an annual family income of less than $90,000, with no co-pays for those with family incomes under $70,000, are eligible for the insurance plan.
The CCPA says this creates “a real barrier to access dental services.”
“The Canada Dental Care Plan is a ‘fill-in-the-gaps’ approach to improving access to dental care…there is no effort by the government to take over the private dental care system and more actively control costs,” reads the report.
“There is no move to remove out-of-pocket expenses for all Canadians, as is the case with universal health care. This is purely an application-based program that fills in dental insurance for those under a certain income level. It is not universal.”
According to the report, a family income of $90,000 annually isn’t unusual in Canada.
The CCPA found that in 2019, 59% of families with children made over $90,000, amounting to 2.2 million families.
CCPA
“Earning $45,000 for each parent isn’t a tremendous salary in Canada,” reads the report. “But making more than that precludes those families from receiving federal dental care coverage.”
The report stresses that this income requirement is a “concerning feature,” saying that no other part of public healthcare is restricted by how much a family makes.
“There is no situation in Canada where you go to a hospital or visit a doctor in Canada and you pay for treatment out-of-pocket if your family makes too much,” states the CCPA.
The report adds that if income caps like the $90,000 one in the CDCP don’t grow with inflation, fewer and fewer Canadians will be able to access the program over time.
“Initial estimates suggest this will result in 147,000 people being cut off of coverage in the first four years of the program alone,” reads the report.
It also argues that the CDCP doesn’t address communities that don’t have an adequate dental workforce and people with private coverage who may still lack access to care due to costly out-of-pocket expenses.
“There is also a complete lack of regulation of private coverage in Canada, so the quality of coverage varies significantly; the CDCP doesn’t address this,” reads the report.
The new dental care plan is a result of the Liberal-NDPÂ confidence-and-supply agreement.
The NDP promised to support the minority Liberal government in upcoming confidence votes, like federal budgets, in exchange for progress on NDP priorities.
One of the top priorities is universal dental care, with the Liberals promising the NDP that it would implement a dental care plan for seniors, children under 18, and people with disabilities by 2024.