6.5 million children enrolled in Medicaid have untreated tooth decay

A Government Accountability Office (GAO) report estimates that about 6.5 million US children ages 2 to 18 enrolled in Medicaid have untreated tooth decay, according to Reuters.

The GAO report also found that roughly one-third of the 20 million children enrolled in Medicaid had dental care in the last year, compared with more than half of children with private health insurance.

In addition, the report estimated that GAO estimates that 1.1 million children ages 2 to 18 enrolled in Medicaid during 2005 had conditions that warranted seeing a dentist within two weeks. Children enrolled in Medicaid were more than four times as likely to be in urgent need of dental care when compared to children with private health insurance.

The full report is available on the GAO Web site here.