A new report from Dental for All confirms that New Zealand can afford a free, universal public dental service, the Green Party says.
"This report confirms the cost of bringing dental care into the public health system is far less than the fiscal, social, and economic cost of the current system," says Green Party Health spokesperson Hūhana Lyndon.
"Keeping dental care unaffordable and out of the public healthcare system increases costs by forcing people to work in pain, not work at all, and eventually end up in hospitals and emergency departments.
"It is a shameful indictment of successive Governments that 43% of adults were unable to access dental care in the last twelve months, simply due to the cost," Lyndon says.
"When we hear stories of people going into debt, or worse, undertaking dental care on themselves because they can't afford care, there is no justification for continuing to keep dental care out of the public healthcare system.
"Free dental care is the financially responsible and humane thing to do and is supported by 83% of New Zealanders."
A Talbot Mills Research poll from just last month had 83 percent of participants supporting dental care being brought into the public healthcare system.
