Article excerpt:

THE proposed $3.7 billion plan for a universal dental health scheme is facing mounting opposition amid fears it could fuel rampant fee inflation or spark a boycott by dentists.

Dental experts from opposite sides of the healthcare debate have united to condemn the plan, and even some private insurers -- who would receive hundreds of millions of taxpayers dollars through the scheme -- have joined the condemnation.

The planned Denticare scheme, one of the key elements of the National Health and Hospitals Reform Commission final report delivered this week, had been one of the commission's most popular ideas when first unveiled in an interim report in February. But the health fund NIB, the fifth-largest private health insurer with a 7 per cent market share, yesterday said it was flatly against the scheme's introduction. NIB managing director Mark Fitzgibbon said while it was "crucial" to give disadvantaged Australians better dental care, the fund was "totally opposed" to Denticare.

"Instead, governments should allow the existing private health insurance mechanism to connect the disadvantaged with dentists by direct subsidy of premiums," Mr Fitzgibbon said. "A duplicate funding mechanism will merely increase administrative costs."