Dental care is badly overlooked in today’s health insurance plans and in the political discussion around health-care reform. Medicare does not cover it, Medicaid’s dental coverage differs from state to state, and an estimated 74 million people in the United States have no dental benefits.

The lack of concern for dental coverage in the United States is very disturbing. That’s why I strongly support Bernie Sanders’s Medicare-for-All bill, which would cover routine and necessary dental care for everyone in America, free at the point of use.

I have worked as a dental hygienist in Alaska for thirty years. In that time, I’ve also volunteered in schools screening students for dental care, educated middle-school students about the effects of tobacco use on oral health, and volunteered at free clinics providing emergency dental care to patients who can’t afford the treatment they need.