CHICAGO--American Dental Association President Mark J. Feldman responds to Native American Full Access to Dental Care Act:
"The American Dental Association applauds Reps. Ron Kind (D-WI) and Dave Camp (R-MI) for introducing legislation that will help bring more dentists into the Indian Health Service and Native American tribal areas, where too many people lack sufficient access to the basic dental care that most Americans take for granted.
"The Native American Full Access to Dental Care Act (H.R. 3960) would help address the dental access problem in some of the nation's most underserved communities, by helping to fill some of the many vacant positions for dentists within the IHS, about one-third of which currently are empty. H.R. 3960 would exempt from federal income taxes government-provided student loan repayment incentives provided to dentists who practice for the IHS, the agency responsible for American Indian and Alaska Native health care. Under current law, those loan repayment incentives are treated as taxable income.
"The ADA thanks Reps. Kind and Camp for introducing this important legislation, and we pledge to support this bill. We also pledge to support other positive solutions to dental access problems so all Americans can get the dental care they need and deserve."
For more information about the ADA, visit the association's Web site at www.ada.org.
