YourVoice.Now Summary
Your MoneyTransparency & AccountabilityMedicaid would have to cover adult dental care — dentures, implants, and emergencies — starting January 2027.
Your Money
Every state Medicaid program would have to cover dental and oral health care for adults, not just for children. The rule starts with the calendar quarter beginning January 1, 2027.
The covered list names dentures and denture work, implants and implant work, care that prevents oral disease, work that restores teeth, pain relief, and emergency treatment. A state could choose to add more on top.
Within one year the department would set up a program to tell people what dental coverage they have and help them get to care. Materials would be in the languages people speak. It would also train dentists and doctors to serve people with disabilities, pregnant patients, and Native communities.
Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, and American Samoa could decide for themselves whether to cover it. If they do, the federal government would pay the full cost for three years, and that money would not count against their capped Medicaid funding.
Transparency & Accountability
States would report every year on adult dental quality and on what their dental benefit actually pays for. The department would publish those reports within two years and every year after. Results would be broken out by race, ethnicity, language, disability, sexual orientation, and gender identity.
The 100 percent federal match runs twelve quarters and ends after 2029. States would then go back to paying their normal share. Congress would have to act again to keep the full match going.
More about this bill
Adults on Medicaid would get dental care as a guaranteed benefit starting January 1, 2027. Right now each state chooses whether to cover it, so what you can get depends on where you live. The new floor would cover dentures, implants, and care to prevent disease, fix teeth, ease pain, or treat an emergency. For the first three years the federal government would pay the whole cost of the new dental care. States would owe nothing extra during that window. After it ends, the usual state and federal cost split returns. The five territories would not have to cover the benefit, though they could choose to. What dentists get paid would not change. A commission would report to Congress within two years on whether those rates should go up. A new outreach program would help people find care and learn what their coverage includes. States would also report each year on the dental care adults actually get, and those reports would be made public.
Congressional Summary
Medicaid Dental Benefit Act of 2026This bill requires state Medicaid programs to cover dental and oral health services for adults. It also increases the Federal Medical Assistance Percentage (i.e., federal matching rate) for such services.The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services must develop oral health quality and equity measures and conduct outreach relating to such coverage. Additionally, the Medicaid and Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) Payment and Access Commission must report on specified information relating to adult oral health care.
Details
- Congress
- 119th
- Chamber
- House
- Status
- summarized
- Action
- Introduced in House
- Action Date
- 2026-07-22
- Date Added
- 2026-08-26
- Source
- Congress.gov →
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