Ottawa’s subsidized dental care plan is putting Canadian workers at risk of losing their private dental coverage, sources say.
“An employer might say I can save money because I don’t need to supply this insurance anymore for my employees,” said Dr. Anita Gartner, president of the British Columbia Dental Association.
The Canadian Dental Care Plan (CDCP) covers individuals whose household income is less than $90,000. It is meant to cover the one-third of Canadians who do not have private dental insurance.
But millions more Canadians could become eligible if their employers choose to cancel private dental insurance to save money — putting the sustainability of the subsidized program at risk.
“This is a huge threat,” said Dr. Maneesh Jain, former president of the Ontario Dental Association.
“What’s going to happen is either the cost of the [plan] is going to continue to escalate [or] then are they going to end up reducing coverage, end up reducing procedure codes,” said Jain.
“Something is going to give, right?”
17 million
On June 1, eligible Canadians aged 18 to 64 could begin receiving dental coverage under the Canadian Dental Care Plan. Coverage for seniors and children began last year.
An estimated 55 per cent of Canadians are covered by private dental insurance, typically through an employer, according to a 2022 Statistics Canada survey.
About a quarter of this population is at risk of being dropped from their dental insurance or cancelling it themselves, says Gartner, citing internal modelling conducted by the Canadian Dental Association.
If this happens, the number of Canadians eligible for the subsidized plan would skyrocket, from the approximately nine million individuals the plan was intended to cover, to an estimated 17 million, says Gartner.
In 2023, Ottawa budgeted that the Canadian Dental Care Plan would cost $13 billion over five years. “If more Canadians come to rely on it … it may force Health Canada to reconsider the budget,” said Gartner.
“[The plan] might not be financially sustainable,” she said.
‘Wait and see’
Some reports suggest many employers are strongly considering cutting their dental coverage — or have already done so.
In a 2024 Canadian Dental Association poll, 14 per cent of Canadian workers said their employers had communicated potential changes to their dental benefits because of Ottawa’s subsidized dental care plan. Another 11 per cent reported their employer had already reduced their dental coverage because of the subsidized plan.
Among employers, 25 per cent reported they were considering removing private dental coverage for workers.
“There’s a bunch of wait and see and talk about it,” said Adam Mitchell, CEO at Mitch Insurance Brokers, an insurance brokerage with offices across Canada.
“Of course, companies are going to look at this and do a cost-benefit analysis and [ask], do they want to have their employees have different coverage but [at] no cost to the company?” said Dr. Hans Herchen, president of the Alberta Dental Association.
But there are some risks to companies cancelling their insurance coverage, says Mitchell. Employers may not be able to verify their employees’ family income, which is how an individual’s eligibility for the subsidized plan is determined.
A decision to cancel dental coverage could also affect how employees — or job seekers — view an employer. “If your employer gets rid of your dental benefits, what does that do for team morale and competitive positioning and trying to attract someone else?” Mitchell said.
Companies are also hearing of patients struggling to access Ottawa’s subsidized plan, says Mitchell. If they drop their private coverage, they want to be assured the plan will survive.
“There’s a bunch of problems on … the lack of clarity on the full implementation and the stability of this [plan],” Mitchell said. “How long is it going to last? Is it going to be killed by any new government, or [are] there some knock-on effects that we haven’t seen?”
Jain, of the Ontario Dental Association, says their association has given presentations to business groups, plan sponsors and unions on the risks associated with de-insurance.
“I don’t think they were getting the proper messaging from Health Canada, so they reached out to us,” Jain said.
“It’s important for them to know that we don’t want them dropping insurance thinking they’re going to get on the CDCP, [and] then they have a rude awakening,” he said.
‘We want it to work’
Herchen, of the Alberta Dental Association, says patient care could be compromised if employers do cancel their private dental coverage.
A majority of ostensibly eligible patients are currently being denied treatment for complex care under Ottawa’s subsidized dental care plan, Canadian Affairs recently reported.
And for those who are being approved, the terms of coverage are often less generous than private plans.
“The [subsidized] plan doesn’t cover nearly as much,” said Herchen. “What it does cover [it] doesn’t cover nearly as well.”
“If we shift patients from the private dental plans to the [plan], Canadians should be extremely concerned that they’ll lose access to the high standards and high range of treatment that we currently can get,” he added.
Jain says dental associations have warned Ottawa about the risk of de-insurance for years.
“[Health Canada] have not put any strategies in place to mitigate that risk. We said that this could … have a profound impact on the sustainability of the program,” he said.
Health Canada told Canadian Affairs that it is working with industry and provincial governments to “consider mitigation solutions to avoid displacement of existing dental plans.”
“Private businesses should not be cancelling their dental plans as a result of the CDCP,” the emailed statement says. “Businesses would not necessarily know if their employees’ adjusted family net income is less than $90,000 [or meet other eligibility criteria].”
Jain says dentists want the government’s plan to be sustainable, but worry these mitigation efforts may not be adequate.
“We want [the plan] to work, we want Canadians to have access to dental care,” he said.
“But we just don’t want this to be unsustainable and then it disappears in a couple years.”
