This year, the Illinois legislature was considering measures to expand oral health treatment in a state where millions of people live in dental care deserts.
But when the Illinois State Dental Society met with key lawmakers virtually for its annual lobbying day in the spring, the proposals to allow dental hygienists to clean the teeth of certain underprivileged patients without a dentist seemed doomed.
State Sen. Dave Syverson, a Republican legislative leader, warned against the bills even if they sounded minor. “It’s just getting the camel’s nose under the tent,” he said in an audio recording of the meeting obtained by KHN. “We’ll have, before long, hygienists doing the work that, if they wanted to do, they should have gone to dental school for.”
