As your executive director I am finding many interesting areas of opportunity for me to bring important information to your attention. The national healthcare debate will have impact on all of us both professionally and personally. There will be great financial burden placed on our posterity as our government continues to pass legislation that increases the national debt. It is imperative that we individually and collectively find areas of interest and become involved with our time and money to influence the solutions chosen to solve health care deficiencies, specifically how oral health care is provided.

As I related to you in my Editors Report, the Institute of Medicine has formed an ad hoc committee to study the access to dental care and make recommendation to U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to aid  them in setting policy effecting how dentistry will be delivered in the future. There are no dentists on that committee.

The ADA is working on our behalf to have input into the process but it will also take a grass roots effort on this and many other fronts to protect and perpetuate the individual private practice we enjoy. All forms of dental practice will be effected by government regulation and we all need to work together as one voice.

The health care delivery system is a multifaceted problem in our country and there is no one solution to fit all facets. First there needs to be breakout of each individual definitions so that a clear definition of the problem can be defined. The economic facet is one example. In depth analyses of cost of care and lack of financial ability will indicate a different solution than for the facet of lack of providers in remote rural areas.

Dentists have always been leaders in problem solving in many areas of our society. We need to individually commit to finding a facet in the immense problem of health care reform and become experts in knowledge and understanding so we can work to help find solutions.