Reality bites for Greens on adding dental coverage to Medicare

The Greens’ $46bn plan to add dental to Medicare would double demand on a sector that ‘simply doesn’t have the workforce available’ for such an expansion.

The Australian Dental Association says the Greens’ plan to add dental work to Medicare was simply unrealistic.

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The Greens’ $46bn plan to add dental to Medicare would double demand on a sector that “simply doesn’t have the workforce available” for such an expansion, with the Parliamentary Budget Office warning the proposal could also result in changes to what health insurers are willing to cover.

And as patients needing significant dental work face waitlists of between one and two years in the public system, the Australian Dental Association declared the Greens’ plan to add dental work to Medicare was simply unrealistic.

“There just isn’t the workforce available,” ADA president Scott Davis said. “While we appreciate (the Greens) vigour and their ­desire to expand to all Australians, the (Australian) Dental Association has continued to reiterate that there is a number of challenges between us and achieving that – the most pressing being workforce and also (the federal) budget.”

Even if there was a comprehensive plan to boost the dental workforce – which currently sits at about 20,000 people — covering both training and immigration initiatives, Dr Davis said the Greens’ policy would still not be feasible. “You’re looking at five years of training and very expensive ­degrees (and) the institutions have close to full rooms of students,” he said.

“And the importation of dentists overseas is one of the ways the Greens thought they could do this. The examination process to assess if they meet our standards takes two years. The examination process, which is run by the Australian Dental Council, also has near-full rooms of people who are being assessed as we speak, so they’ve increased the number that they can assess in recent years and they couldn’t make a dramatic change.”

Modelling on the policy by the Parliamentary Budget Office, released on Monday, says the financial implications of the proposal are “highly uncertain”.

“The proposal may result in changes to products offered by private health insurers, which may have a flow-on impact to insurance rebates provided by the commonwealth government,” the PBO’s report found. “It is highly uncertain whether there would be sufficient supply of qualified dental professionals to meet the increased demand for dental services under the proposal.”

Greens leader Adam Bandt. Picture: NewsWire / Martin Ollman

Impact Economics and Policy lead economist Angela Jackson said looking at labour in the sector could be “refocused” to critical dental work over teeth whitening and cosmetic procedures should be considered.

“There is merit in expanding Medicare to cover dental,” she said. “It’s important we don’t get into the American debate. Literally how Americans like the Trumps will say … you shouldn’t have access to a Medicare-type health system at all … you have insurance now or lose access.”

In order to fund the initiative, which would cost $46bn over the forward estimates, the Greens would seek to impose supertaxes on large corporation to raise more than $500bn over the decade.

Greens leader Adam Bandt said that with a high expectation of a hung parliament after the next election, the party would be “in a strong position to push Labor” to put dental into Medicare and “finish the job” they started in 2010 when the Greens secured free basic dental for kids.

Grattan Institute health program director Peter Breadon said there were a number of “implementation challenges” to the Greens’ plan and called for a longer, phased approach.

“It will require many thousands of new dental workers. We think phasing it in over 10 years is more realistic,” he said.

“It needs to be phased in over time, starting with certain groups, including probably children, concession card holders, older people, and phasing those groups in over time to get to a full universal scheme of the kind (the Greens) envisage.”

A spokeswoman for Health Minister Mark Butler said the government was working on a new national oral health plan for 2025-2034 that would seek to “reduce inequalities in oral health status across the Australian population”.