The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act's 10 essentialhealth benefits have given brokers and agents plenty to chew onduring the law's implementation. While those benefits are intendedto improve care covered under health plans across the nation, theyhave been shown to drive up the cost of some plans—a side effectlargely unknown to many new plan purchasers thanks to the law'ssubsidies—and has led to cases of coverage incongruity. Forexample, men are now required to pay for prenatal care. Childlessindividuals are required to pay for pediatric care. And people whodon't take pills have to pay for prescription coverage.

But even with all those covered areas, there's a glaringomission, especially for workers who've been receiving health carebenefits for years. PPACA doesn't cover adult dental care, and theomission has garnered sharp criticism from benefits professionals,health care officials and dentists across the nation. “[PPACA] is amissed opportunity, and we have a long way to go in ensuring accessto oral health for all Americans,” says Marko Vujicic, managingvice president of the American Dental Association's Health PolicyResearch Center. “This is especially true for adults, who haveexperienced greater financial barriers to dental care in recentyears.”

Sure, there's a mandate for pediatric dental care, but there'sno mandate for adults to get coverage—even though a recent study bythe ADA showed that 40 percent of lower-income adults believe PPACAwill help them get dental care. And while the ADA also estimatesthat 5.3 million adults are expected to get dental care under PPACAfrom expansions of dental benefits in Medicaid states, it won'thappen for everyone.