Canada Needs Dental Care for All
Canada desperately needs to expand its public health coverage to include dental care for all — and the NDP can lead the fight for it.
Canada’s billionaires have added $53 billion to their net worth since the start of the pandemic. Shifting the cost of universal dental care from ordinary citizens onto the wealthy through progressive taxation is a necessary step. (Bofu Shaw / Unsplash)
After winning a majority in last fall’s provincial election, British Columbia’s New Democratic Party have a strong mandate. They now have the opportunity to implement public dental care, an overwhelmingly popular policy goal that would plug a major gap in Canada’s universal health care system.
Dental care in Canada is private, with 95 percent of dental spending coming from work-related insurance and out-of-pocket payments and only 5 percent from government programs. The government share of spending is even lower than in the United States. More than one in three Canadians lack dental insurance, and one in five report avoiding the dentist every year due to financial constraints.
As more people retire or lose their work-related insurance, these figures are rising. The spread of the gig economy, which does not provide benefits to its workers, is also contributing to insufficient coverage. The BC NDP should act now and provide Canada with a blueprint for dental care that it can lock in place for the post-pandemic recovery.
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