Settlement May Help Poor Get Dental Care

[flashl]

For more than a decade, poor parents across Connecticut have complained about frustrating searches for dentists willing to take their cases, while their children cried in pain from rotten or broken teeth.

The problem became so severe that legal aid lawyers filed a class-action lawsuit eight years ago, accusing the state of violating the rights of 300,000 low-income residents who have been effectively shut out of dentists' offices by stingy state Medicaid rates.

But lawyers hope that the doors to dental offices will soon begin to open under the terms of a settlement that promises to dramatically increase state payments to dentists and remove some of the red tape that dentists say have made them reluctant to treat the poor.

Although the settlement is not scheduled to go to federal court for final approval until August, state officials and advocates for the poor said Thursday that many of the improvements mandated in the agreement are already being implemented.

Courant

[wellstone dem]

1. Blessed are the poor who have a lawyer!

And blessed are the Legal Aid lawyers who didn't just stand by, but stood by and for the poor.

[I Have A Dream]

2. It's about damn time.

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