DENTISTRY
EVERY Australian child will have government-subsidised dental care, including for braces, under a major revamp of dental policy to be announced in the Budget.
The means-tested Child Dental Scheme, which provided care for just three million children, will be axed and replaced by a scheme providing dental cover for all 5.3 million Australian kids. 
The $1000 cap on government-funded dental care will be scrapped under the new Child and Adult Public Dental Scheme scheme, which will even pay for braces, crowns and implants if they are clinically necessary rather than merely cosmetic.
Five million adults with healthcare cards will also get dental cover under the scheme, expected to cost $1.7 billion over four years.
The drawback of the new scheme is that, instead of using private dentists, families who want subsidised care will have to use the public systems run by the states, which have long waiting lists.
"It will represent a doubling of the Commonwealth's contribution to the states and territories for public dental services, and, for the first time, will be enshrined in legislation to provide long-term certainty for current and future generations," Health Minister Sussan Ley told The Saturday Telegraph.
The government expects an extra 600,000 public dental patients to be treated every year under the scheme.
The change means the states will now be responsible for dental care and they will be able to charge parents a co-payment for dental care if they wish.
About 20 per cent of the nation's dentists work in the public sector and there are already lengthy waiting lists for public dental care.
At the end of   December last year there were 9203 children and 104,156 adults waiting for general public dental care in NSW.
A spokesman for Ms Ley said this problem would be addressed because the states will get a 40 per cent increase in funding.The previous 20 per cent funding increase for public dental care led to a 50 per cent reduction in waiting times, he said.