Free dental care could soon be available to millions of Australians amid mounting pressure on the Albanian government to reform Medicare.
Polls suggest Labor could lose votes at the next federal election, pushing it into minority government and giving more power to independents.
The last time this happened in 2010, the Greens pushed to include pediatric dental services in Medicare, allowing more than three million children to access free care.
Greens leader Adam Bandt wants to extend this to all Australians, in a plan estimated to cost around $45.6 billion.
“As anyone who has ever had a toothache knows, dental care is not optional,” he said last month.
“It is critical that we expand Medicare to cover everything, for everyone.”
Now, a growing number of Labour MPs are calling for the issue to be put on the government’s agenda in the next parliamentary term.
Tasmanian Labor Senator Helen Polley said the party “needed” to make progress on dental health.
“If I could (add dental coverage to Medicare) tomorrow, I would,” he told The Australian.
“I have it very much on my agenda to raise this issue next semester and discuss it with my colleagues.”
Ms Polley said dental care needed the same support and funding that had been given to mental health services over the past decade.
Free dental care could soon be available to millions of Australians following the Albanian government’s move to create a new Medicare scheme (file image)
This comes as a growing number of Labour MPs are calling for the issue to be put on the government’s agenda in the next parliamentary term (file image)
A spokesman for Health Minister Mark Butler said the government was considering including dental policies in the National Oral Health Plan for 2025-34.
The Labour Party has invested $220m in the “dental reform agenda”, which includes a study into the cost of adult dental services in the public sector.
Mike Freelander, a paediatrician and MP for Macarthur, said there was an “economic gap between who can and cannot access dental care” in Australia.
“I think it’s important that we have some form of dental care in the publicly accessible health system, but the Greens’ suggestion to cover all dental care is unaffordable at the moment,” Dr Freelander said.
Poor oral health can have a significant impact on Australians, with one in five adults avoiding certain foods due to dental problems and a third feeling uncomfortable with their appearance because of their teeth, the National Oral Health Plan has revealed.
According to data from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, between 2017 and 2018, almost four in 10 people over the age of 15 had avoided or delayed visiting the dentist due to cost.
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