Howard County's innovative health access plan for uninsured residents will also have a dental component, county officials announced yesterday.
Residents who enroll in the Healthy Howard program, due to begin Oct. 1, will be eligible for discounts of 35 percent to 50 percent from 75 dentists and orthodontists who practice in the county and participate in the Aetna dental program, said Mike Bucci, marketing vice president for Aetna, who made the announcement in Ellicott City with County Executive Ken Ulman and county Health Officer Dr. Peter L. Beilenson. Participants would pay monthly fees of $1.65 for one person or $3.30 for a family. A typical semiannual dental exam and cleaning that now costs about $80 would cost $50, and deeper discounts would apply to more costly work, Bucci said.
Aetna has already pledged $56,000 toward the $750,000 in private funds the county needs in the program's first year. An announcement of a larger cash grant from the Horizon Foundation is scheduled for Friday.
County officials said that although the dental discount is limited, it achieves a major objective: providing access to more affordable dental care for county residents.
"We really wanted to focus on dental care," Beilenson said at a news conference held at county's public health clinic.
"We're making progress," Ulman said, noting that identical General Assembly bills carving out a place for the county's program in state law were unanimously approved in their respective legislative chambers within the past few days. Letters alerting working families making less than $60,000 a year that they might be eligible for federally funded health insurance for children known as SCHIP were also mailed yesterday, Beilenson said.
Howard is estimated to have about 20,000 people without access to health care through insurance. The Healthy Howard program was announced last fall as an effort by county government to provide comprehensive health care access, though not insurance, for those people, starting with about 2,000 in the first year.
larry.carson@baltsun.com