On Sunday, I was listening to the radio when another Senator repeated the promise that “Americans can keep their current coverage and doctors.” I found myself screaming at the radio, “just not your dental or vision coverage!” Aware my outburst did nothing beyond frighten the other drivers on the road; I knew I had to take to the blogosphere.

I don’t want to be an alarmist, but I have devoted a lot of resources to figuring out how the 1000’s of pages of health care reform bills work. I know there are unexpected surprises in these bills that Americans should know about.  Whenever I share what I know with my family and friends, they say “Really? Why?”

Now I want to know what you think about 3 things the House version of health care reform will do:

1. If you are one of the 132 million Americans with dental benefits for you and your kids, you won’t be able to keep your kids under your dental benefits policy with your coverage.  This means your children won’t have the same policy, and may have a different dentist. (Same goes for vision if you have vision coverage).
2. If you don’t have kids, you will pay for dental and vision coverage for kids up to age 21 as part of your medical policy.
3. You will pay more for the dental part of your health coverage than you do today.

What do you think?

Evelyn F. Ireland, CAE, is a mother of two and Executive Director of the National Association of Dental Plans. She is recognized as an expert in the insurance industry by ‘Insurance Newscast Expert.’