Canadian Dental Care Plan looks good on paper but experiences of seniors, immigrants tell a different story: advocates
With the Canadian Dental Care Plan recently marking its first year anniversary, the Canadian Health Coalition hosted a webinar on June 16 with advocates to assess the public dental care plan and how it is measuring up. The webinar is now available for viewing here:
Joining the Canadian Health Coalition’s Anne Lagacé Dowson for the conversation was Dr. Brandon Doucet, dentist and founder of the Coalition for Dentalcare, Olivier Suprenant, Public Policy and Health Analyst of the Union des consommateurs and Tracy Glynn, National Director of Projects and Operations of the Canadian Health Coalition and board member of the Madhu Verma Migrant Justice Centre.
While noting that the Canadian Dental Care Plan is “a reason to smile,” Dr. Doucet said 6.5 million people have signed up for the plan and that it has been used by 3.6 million people but the expectation was that 8.5-9 million people would sign up.
The dentist noted the hurdles in the registration process that are stopping people from applying as well as how it excludes people who are unable to show their family income, those who haven’t file their tax returns, and immigrants who pay taxes in Canada but are denied coverage because their spouse lives in another country.
“People also have to be aware of the program and sign up months before being able to use their coverage,” added Dr. Doucet.
“Many seniors who were looking forward to sign up for this program were also denied access as the language around eligibility changed from if you have private insurance to if you have access to private insurance. In effect, this means that seniors that were offered to keep their work-related insurance when they retired, which usually coincided with a drop in coverage and an increase in costs were forced to pay into this private plan rather than choosing the superior government program. This restriction is nothing more than a handout to the private insurance industry.”
Dr. Doucet expects more people to fall through the cracks with time, noting that income cutoffs going forward have not gone up with inflation, and people have to reapply every year. He wants the Canadian Dental Care Plan to automatically renew every year through the Canadian Revenue Agency. He called the 50 per cent co-payments for those who qualify when balance billing is added absurd.
Canada is still spending less on public dental care compared to other OECD nations, according to Dr. Doucet. “Now, we’re closer to 25 per cent, which is still below the OECD average of 31.5 per cent and well below other countries like, for example, Germany and Japan, whose rate of public dental spending is 57 per cent and 76 per cent respectively.”
“The Canadian Dental Care Plan also leaves untouched the problems associated with private insurance, over treatment being incentivized in a private system, and the takeover of dental clinics by private equity,” added Dr. Doucet who wants the Canadian Dental Care Plan “to be seen as a first step towards building a truly universal system that does not shy away from expanding the public delivery of care and the use of dental therapists.”
“The reason we don’t have a world-class dental care system is because of the industries that profit off of the status quo, and any solution that is not willing to confront those industries will fall short of a system that we truly deserve,” concluded Dr. Doucet.
Olivier Suprenant of Union des consommateurs, a consumer advocacy group in Quebec, noted not all private insurance plans are created equal. “Some private coverage may be inferior to the coverage provided by the CDCP, and for the most part, employers have to file a T4 to the CRA indicating if their employees are covered by a private insurance plan. After that, you have to prove that you and your spouse or common law partner, if applicable, must that they have filed their tax returns in Canada so that your family income can be assessed for the previous year. That may sound good in principle, but in practice, it creates problems.”
“We have heard from people who got excluded from the CDCP because one of the spouses does not live in Canada, or is not considered a Canadian resident for tax purposes. This fact renders the whole family ineligible to the CDCP. So this means that children born on Canadian soil are excluded from a plan that is supposed to help them,” noted Supernant.
For Suprenant, “household income can be determined for families with a spouse outside of Canada like it is under the Canada Child Benefit, where there is an additional form to report worldwide income for a non-resident spouse or common law partner. So when there’s a will, there’s a way.”
Suprenant argues that the household income cut-off of $90,000 to be eligible for the CDCP is too low. “The median after-tax income for economic families in 2024 was $75,000 and that the mean after-tax income for economic families in 2024 was around $109,000. So this excludes a lot of families.”
Tracy Glynn shared what she is hearing from migrant workers that the Madhu Verma Migrant Justice Centre supports in New Brunswick. “We ask migrant workers about their dental coverage, and they tell us they’re not going to a dentist.”
“Some say they don’t because they don’t know how to file their claims. Some don’t have access to their plans. Their employers have not provided this information to them… And many of them tell us that they don’t go to the dentist simply because they can’t afford to pay upfront for dental care and wait for reimbursement,” explained Glynn.
Employers of Temporary Foreign Workers who don’t have access to Medicare are obligated to provide the workers with private health insurance, so that automatically disqualifies them from the Canadian Dental Care Plan.
Glynn noted that on May 1, the Carney government introduced co-payments to refugee health care. “Refugees now must pay $4 for each eligible prescription filled or refilled, and they must pay 30 per cent of the cost for other eligible services, including dental care. “That might not sound like a lot of money, but for people who don’t have any money, that means that they won’t access dental care or other health care,” added Glynn.
“I think many of us across this country feel that we can do better and that everybody’s deserving of health care,” said Glynn.
Upcoming webinar –
June 30 – Jennifer Goodyer and Alex Russell, Canada Health Act Division at Health Canada, on the Canada Health Act Annual Report that shows how provinces and territories are doing with regard to upholding the principles of the Canada Health Act, ensuring that access to medically necessary care is based on medical need—not the ability or willingness to pay. With Canadian Health Coalition’s Steve Staples. Register for the Zoom link.
Webinars are recorded for later viewing on the Canadian Health Coalition’s youtube channel.
For more information, contact Tracy at tglynn@healthcoalition.ca.
