{"id":1886,"date":"2019-03-14T17:55:13","date_gmt":"2019-03-14T17:55:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/?p=1886"},"modified":"2019-03-14T17:55:13","modified_gmt":"2019-03-14T17:55:13","slug":"greens-announce-5-8b-dental-policy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/2019\/03\/14\/greens-announce-5-8b-dental-policy\/","title":{"rendered":"Greens announce $5.8b dental policy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>$5.8 billion would be invested in providing Medicare-funded dental care in a policy announced today by Leader of the Australian Greens Dr Richard Di Natale and Greens candidate for Macnamara Steph Hodgins-May.<br \/>\n\u201cYour health shouldn\u2019t be determined by your postcode or bank balance,\u201d said Dr Di Natale, a former GP and public health specialist.<br \/>\n\u201cUntreated dental disease can dramatically impact on a person\u2019s health and quality of life, and it is the most vulnerable people in our community who are impacted the most. The Greens will invest $5.8 billion to provide Medicare-funded dental care to all young people, aged pensioners, full benefit recipients and concession card holders.<br \/>\n\u201cMillions of Australians have delayed visiting the dentist because of high out of pocket costs, which is why the Greens have long been champions of Medicare-funded dental care. In 2012 the Greens secured Medicare-funded dental care for 3.4 million children and now we commit to build on that foundation.<br \/>\n\u201cThe Coalition has never supported Medicare but if the Labor party really support affordable universal healthcare Bill Shorten should commit to working with the Greens to bring dental into Medicare,\u201d Di Natale said.<br \/>\nHodgins-May said the out of pocket costs of dental treatment undermined Australia\u2019s health system.<br \/>\n\u201cI\u2019m proud to live in a country with universal healthcare but the cost of seeing a dentist is a huge gap,\u201d said Hodgins-May.<br \/>\n\u201cThere is no reason why your mouth should be treated differently to the rest of your body. Going to the dentist should be just like going to the GP and that\u2019s exactly what the Greens will deliver.\u201d<br \/>\nThe policy initiative document can be found\u00a0<a title=\"Dental Policy\" href=\"http:\/\/icm-tracking.meltwater.com\/link.php?DynEngagement=true&amp;H=btYXC68syxnIlVIaW0qBweEUHWPFwuN5EgnqFgPj0oiC1OMl9zi1RjOS0npEaDan%2F9nN9HAKJ26atcBUYQSuRA8%2BJP%2B5VUOum%2BV%2BxJdLFPGr5Jt%2FgW7M4OkwxGK%2BGqmn&amp;G=0&amp;R=https%3A%2F%2Fgreens.org.au%2Fsites%2Fdefault%2Ffiles%2F2019-03%2FGreens%25202019%2520Policy%2520Platform%2520-%2520Denticare.pdf&amp;I=20190314010249.0000009d8963%40mail6-113-ussnn1&amp;X=MHwxMDQ2NzU4OjVjODk4N2IzZjJjYWMyZWMxMDBmYmQ2Yjs%3D&amp;S=T_corMU3_uitcY1DA94tG4EY3vzetV9h4bVQluSaN8A\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>$5.8 billion would be invested in providing Medicare-funded dental care in a policy announced today by Leader of the Australian Greens Dr Richard Di Natale and Greens candidate for Macnamara Steph Hodgins-May. \u201cYour health shouldn\u2019t be determined by your postcode or bank balance,\u201d said Dr Di Natale, a former GP and public health specialist. \u201cUntreated &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/2019\/03\/14\/greens-announce-5-8b-dental-policy\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Greens announce $5.8b dental policy&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1886","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-aussie"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1886","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1886"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1886\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1886"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1886"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1886"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}