Senator Tim Kaine held a virtual press conference on Tuesday ahead of the State of the Union address, accompanied by Dr. Cameron Roberts, a dentist from the Shenandoah Valley. WMRA's Randi B. Hagi reports.
Kaine told reporters on Tuesday that the domestic issue most on his mind is the healthcare system, including repercussions from last year's budget reconciliation bill. Changes in Medicaid work and reporting requirements are expected to disenroll millions of people by 2034. Enhanced tax credits that reduced the cost of Affordable Care Act health insurance plans expired at the end of the year. The nonprofit health policy research organization KFF estimates that the expiration will result in a 114% increase in average premium payments.
TIM KAINE: With the passage of the Affordable Care Act that I was pleased to champion way back when, and then with its expansion in Virginia, the Medicaid expansion, we were able to get to a place in the country in the last couple years where we had driven the uninsured rate down to the lowest it's been in the history of the nation. But in the last year, the system has really absorbed a lot of shocks.
Dr. Roberts is a dentist based in Harrisonburg who also serves as the dental director on the board of the nonprofit Augusta Regional Dental Clinic. He's accompanying Kaine as his guest to the State of the Union address.
CAMERON ROBERTS: What I'm seeing on the private practice side, as we've had the changes to ACA, my staff has had a massive increase in people asking if we're taking Medicaid. Probably 15 calls a day, and what is frustrating is we don't have great resources in that particular area to refer them to. The other thing we're seeing with the charitable clinic, is there are lots of people that were covered with insurance under ACA that have now lost it, and so they're calling to see if they can get in with us.
He noted that poor dental health affects all the other systems of the body.
