Washington, D.C., May 1, 2012 – A story in today’s New York Times points up a new aspect of the unfortunate phenomenon of people seeking treatment for dental problems in hospital emergency rooms: patients claiming to be in agony from dental disease in order to procure prescription pain medication, and emergency room physicians trying to sort out which of them actually need those drugs.

The Times did not explore the underlying problem—there is virtually no consistent, substantive dental safety net for low-income adults. Medicaid dental programs, which vary state by state, generally focus only on covering children. The children’s programs range from pretty good to abysmal. There is less variation in states’ Medicaid adult programs, because there is no federal requirement for adult Medicaid coverage. It is virtually nonexistent.

Uninsured and indigent people cannot get routine dental care, small problems become big ones, and the pain becomes intolerable. As a result, they flock to...