Testimony for HB394, Dental Care for underinsured children.

Chairman Sinrud and members of the committee:  For the record, my name is Moe Wosepka. I currently serve as Executive Director of the Montana Catholic Conference.  The Montana Catholic Conference is the public policy arm for the two Catholic Bishops in Montana, representing over 140,000 Catholics in the two Dioceses statewide. 

For the past 10 years I worked for Good Samaritan Ministries in Helena.  Our ministry was to the poor and homeless, the forgotten in our nursing homes, and the ignored in our prisons and jails.  It is from this perspective that I speak to you today.  Our primary focus was to help clients make their way from welfare to work.  We all know the value of work, and how through our work we gain self worth.  We cannot underestimate the value of self worth in the transition from welfare to work.

The parents of the children we are concerned with in this bill are the working but cannot afford health insurance for their families, or have they have health insurance but it does not include dental.

We all know the cost of dental work is high; I just had some dental work done a week ago, which cost me over $700.00.  The families that I worked with would have a very difficult time coming up with that kind of money. 

We all know the first impression of someone is a very powerful message.  A child that has bad teeth knows that also, and will hide his or her teeth by not smiling, by not talking, by not participating.  We also know that lack of preventive care leads to much more difficult and costly repairs for adults. These same children will face problems getting jobs as they become adults.  I had clients who couldn’t even get a job at McDonalds because of their dental problems. But think about it.  How appealing would it be to have the person taking your order showing rotten and blackened teeth?

This is another of those pay now or pay later problems.  If we want to help families pull themselves out of poverty, we need to help them with their health care and health access.  This is a good approach from a man who has seen the problem first hand.

We thank Representative Jones for bringing this bill forward, and urge a do pass.  Thank you Mr. Chairman and members of the committee for your time and attention.