Medicaid Dental Benefit Act of 2026
Sponsored By: Senator Alsobrooks, Angela D. [D-MD]
Introduced
Summary
Mandatory adult Medicaid dental and oral health coverage would be added to the list of required Medicaid services, creating a defined baseline of covered dental care and protections for institutionalized medically needy adults. It would pair the new benefit with a time‑limited 100% federal matching rate to encourage State and Territory adoption beginning in 2028.
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- Adults and households: Low‑income adults enrolled in Medicaid would gain guaranteed coverage for dentures, implants, preventive care, treatment for pain and emergencies, and other oral health services starting January 1, 2028. Institutionalized medically needy adults would have explicit access protections to these services.
- States and Territories: States would be eligible for a 100% Federal Medical Assistance Percentage for dental spending for a 12‑quarter period beginning January 1, 2028. Territories would get a comparable 12‑quarter enhanced match after they first add coverage, and those enhanced funds would be excluded from territorial cap calculations.
- Quality, equity, reporting, and outreach: HHS would develop an adult oral health core set of quality and equity measures, require annual State reporting with demographic stratification, publish data at least every two years, and run outreach and technical assistance. The bill authorizes $10 million for the reporting and related activities.
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Bill Overview
Analyzed Economic Effects
3 provisions identified: 2 benefits, 0 costs, 1 mixed.
New Medicaid adult dental coverage
If enacted, Medicaid would have to cover dental and oral health services for adults starting in calendar quarters beginning January 1, 2028. Covered services would include dentures, implants, prevention, restorations, pain relief, and emergency dental care. Providers must be legally authorized under State law to give these services. Benchmark-equivalent Medicaid plans would also include this dental coverage starting January 1, 2028, and States could add more dental services at their option.
100% federal match and limits
If enacted, the federal government would pay 100% of Medicaid costs for the new adult dental benefit for 12 quarters starting January 1, 2028 for States and for 12 quarters beginning when a Territory first starts coverage. The 100% match would not apply to optional extra dental items that a State elects to cover or to services already covered for an individual on the enactment date. For U.S. Territories, extra amounts tied to the higher match would not count toward territorial payment caps.
State adult oral health reporting
If enacted, each State and CHIP plan would have to report adult oral health quality and equity data every year. Reports must include measures and data broken down by race, ethnicity, primary language, disability, sexual orientation, and gender identity. The Secretary would publish the collected information within two years and then annually. Congress would also get a MACPAC report and $10 million is authorized to help pay for reporting work.
Sponsors & CoSponsors
Sponsor
Alsobrooks, Angela D. [D-MD]
MD • D
Cosponsors
There are no cosponsors for this bill.
Roll Call Votes
No roll call votes available for this bill.
View on Congress.gov