Pew Report: Florida ranks last in dental care for poor children

A recent study by the Pew Center for the States found that only 23.5 percent of Medicaid-enrolled Floridian children age 18 and under received any sort of dental care in 2008, making Florida the worst state in the nation when it comes to providing dental care to low-income kids.“Our state’s Medicaid program…has some of the most awful reimbursement rates for dentists in the United States,” said Frank Catalanotto, chairman of the Department of Community Dentistry at the University of Florida. “The result is that very few dentists in the state of Florida participate in the dental Medicaid program.”