New Study Warns That Medicaid Coverage Losses Could Leave Hundreds of Thousands of Children With Untreated Dental Disease

A study published in JAMA Network Open by researchers at Harvard School of Dental Medicine has put numbers to a concern that many dental providers have long raised: when children lose dental insurance coverage, their cavities don't get prevented — they just go untreated longer. The study modeled the likely oral health consequences of new Medicaid eligibility requirements enacted under federal legislation in 2025, which researchers project could result in roughly 480,000 children per year losing Medicaid coverage between 2025 and 2034.

Using a microsimulation model drawn from nationally representative health survey data, the researchers estimated that this level of disenrollment could produce nearly 96,000 additional cases of tooth decay in children over a ten-year period, along with approximately $86.5 million in added healthcare costs. The study's lead author noted that the findings illustrate a consistent pattern: losing coverage doesn't make the costs of dental disease disappear, it simply pushes them downstream — toward more advanced infections, emergency room visits, and more expensive interventions.

The findings land against an already uneven backdrop. According to figures cited in the study and by the American Dental Association, only about half of children enrolled in Medicaid or CHIP visited a dentist in 2024, compared to roughly two-thirds of children with private insurance. In more than half of U.S. states, fewer than half of pediatric Medicaid patients had a dental visit in the previous year, pointing to access barriers that exist even before any coverage changes take effect.

For parents, the practical picture the study sketches is straightforward: a child on Medicaid who develops cavities can typically receive an exam, x-rays, and fillings at no cost to the family. If that coverage is lost, the same course of treatment carries an estimated out-of-pocket cost of around $570 — a gap that, for many low-income families, means treatment gets delayed until a cavity becomes something more serious. The study adds to a growing body of evidence that children's dental coverage functions as a genuine health intervention, not just an administrative benefit.