The Washington Post has a story today about Maryland's Congressional delegation pushing for guaranteed dental coverage in Medicaid and SCHIP. They are using the story of Deamonte Driver, who tragically died earlier this year because he did not receive routine dental care, to advocate for this change.

While the Driver tragedy is unfortunate and was completely preventable, Medicaid dental coverage would not have helped him. I can say this with some certainty because Maryland has dental coverage for kids on Medicaid. It couldn't have helped Deamonte because Deamonte's mother had let the family's Medicaid coverage lapse. And, she admits, she was not really paying attention to Deamonte's condition. The services Deamonte needed were available to him for no charge; his mother didn't take advantage of them.

Maryland congressmen are grilling CMS officials and insurance executives about dental coverage issues. It seems unlikely that any amount of coverage would have prevented this tragedy, however. If a mother is not signed up for a program to provide free medical care and is not paying attention to her children's health needs, what can the government, insurance companies, or doctors do?

Michael Cannon of the Cato Institute had an interesting take on this issue back in March.