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History Part 4 – Cont.
US Bills to License Dental Therapists
Other States – continued:
• Some bills can be argued to be obvious in their intent to accrue benefits to
employers of DTs, as they lack defined obligations to address needs of any
disadvantaged community or populations eg Medicaid. They ride the same
Access to Care bandwagon as all the others, repeating the usual propaganda, but
add "Free Market rights of dentists to employ DTs" dialogue to it. They claim DTs
will address everyone's dental needs at no cost to taxpayers.
• Other bills can be argued as weakened by requirement of an existing RDH state
license, and others are weak for extending time and cost of education by dual
training for RDH/DT masters degrees.
• Argue that a bill is inappropriate to advocate that DTs are a means to address
the needs of disadvantaged, underserved populations when the bill calls for
longer and more expensive DT education. (At the same time, the shorter/cheaper
their education, the more likely the DTs are to recognize their need to be on a
team led by a dentist.)
