Adding adult dental care to basic health insurance will cost €1.2 billion

Adding dental care for adults to the basic health insurance package will cost the government 1.2 billion euros, according to calculations for the year 2018 by the Central Planning Bureau. The Ministry of Public Health is considering adding adult dental care to the basic package in an effort to lower contributions to supplementary insurance, NU.nl reports. The government's expenses to the Health Insurance Act will actually increase with 1.9 billion euros, but the insured themselves will pay 700 million euros of that in excess. To date the basic insurance package only covers dental care for children under the age of 18. This includes periodic checks, nerve treatments and pulling teeth, but does not include certain implants, bridges and crowns. For adults only treatment for dental and oral diseases is covered. The CPB expect that should the government decide to add adult dental care to the basic package, two things will happen. Firstly, people who currently do not have supplementary insurance for dental care and have used up their excess, will make more use of dental care. On the other hand, people who currently do have supplementary insurance and still have available excess, will use less dental care. The CPB also sees a rush to dental care in a catch-up effect, but that will only be temporary.