Medicare will cover dental care starting in 2028, but slowly.
S. 5089 — Medicare Dental Benefit Act of 2026 · Filed by Angela Alsobrooks (D-MD) · 2 cosponsors · Introduced Jul 22, 2026 · Referred to committee
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What it does
Starting January 1, 2028, Medicare will pay for dental services. These include cleanings, fillings, extractions, root canals, dentures, and emergency care. Coverage starts at 0% and grows 10% each year. It reaches 80% in year 8. Low-income seniors get 80% coverage right away. The federal government pays all state costs for dental help.
Who it affects
Seniors on Medicare gain access to dental care they could not get before. Low-income seniors get full coverage immediately. Other seniors wait years for coverage to build up.
One thing to notice
Most seniors will have little or no dental coverage for seven years. The bill does not say what dentists will be paid.
From the analysis of the bill text, linked under Primary records below.
Where it stands
2 cosponsors: 2 Democrats.
- Jul 22, 2026 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in Senate”
- Jul 22, 2026 — Referred to Senate Committee on Finance · Congress.gov: “Read twice and referred to the Committee on Finance”
Dates and quoted wording are Congress.gov's action record; the timeline shows status changes, not every procedural step.
Words to know
- Medicare — Health insurance for people age 65 and older, run by the federal government.
- low-income — Earning less money than most people in the country.
How this was measured
Analysis — Quorum's AI read the bill text published by Congress.gov (9,021 characters) on Jul 30, 2026. Section numbers in the findings refer to that text, linked below; transparency and hidden-provision scores are compared against the median of 14,707 analysed bills.
Status and sponsors — Congress.gov's bill record — actions, committee referrals and cosponsors — loaded nightly. The timeline shows status changes, not every procedural action.
As of — page rendered 2026-09-23.
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