31 Ways in 31 Days – Way #7 Mixed News for Community Health Centers and Dental Health Care

The budget bill contains 10% cuts to a broad range of public health programs, including Community Health Centers, yet it also has a couple of positive developments relating to targeted funding for dental health care.

Community Health Centers are a critical part of the health care safety net. They help uninsured Wisconsinites get access to preventive health care services, and they also deliver care to many people on BadgerCare or Medicaid. Community Health Centers had more than 1 million patient visits in 2009, roughly twice as many as in 2000.

Wisconsin’s Community Health Centers have been playing a steadily growing role in providing access to dental health care for low-income state residents. Dental care is extremely difficult to obtain for many people in rural areas of Wisconsin and for low-income families and individuals all across the state. In 2008, only 23 percent of enrollees in BadgerCare and Medicaid received dental care. (See the Healthiest Wisconsin 2020 – Oral Health Profile.)

As noted above, the budget bill cuts 10 percent from the base level funding for a wide range of earmarked health care appropriations, causing a total reduction of $7 million per year. Among those cuts are the following specific reductions:

• $610,000 per year cut from the appropriation for community health centers
• $99,500 annually from the funding for rural health dental clinics, and
• $300,500 each year from the dental services appropriation.

On the positive side of the ledger, the Joint Finance Committee added funding to the budget for a couple of new appropriations related to dental care:

• The bill now includes $850,000 per year for grants to at least nine nonprofit dental clinics that primarily serve low-income patients and do not receive federal funding for federally qualified health care centers.

• The Finance Committee set aside $250,000 in the second year of the biennium in its supplemental appropriation to support the “Seal-A-Smile” program, which is a school-based dental sealant program. (DHS must seek private matching funds and submit a request to the committee for release of the $250,000.)

The net effect of the budget bill for access to dental care and for Community Health Centers more broadly will also depend on how DHS exercises the unprecedented authority it has been given to make cuts in BadgerCare and Medicaid, in order to generate at least $467 million in savings.

If changes made to BadgerCare result in a large increase in uninsured Wisconsinites, that could put a significant strain on Wisconsin’s Community Health Centers, and it could compound the current problems relating to access to dental care for low-income state residents.

Jon Peacock

Tomorrow—Way #8: Damaging W-2 Changes

About the series: “31 Ways in 31 Days” is a series of posts to the WCCF blog exploring the recently-passed biennial budget’s impact on children and families in Wisconsin. Each day in July, we are posting a description of one way the budget will affect kids and families, with an eye toward what should be done going forward to help improve outcomes and move us closer to the goal of making Wisconsin a place where every child has the opportunity to grow up, learn, and thrive in a safe, healthy, economically secure home and community.