She died on May 10 in Orem at age 54, two days following a dental procedure which could have been avoided if not for the pressure of completing all dental work by the Medicaid expiration date. Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr.'s proposal to fund an extension through private donations may avert the immediate crisis, but he and the Legislature are responsible for creating a longer-term solution.

My mom worked hard to help support her 10 children, raising the youngest mostly on her own. Mounting health problems made it impossible to continue working, however; after three years of applying for and being denied Medicaid eligibility despite multiple significant health issues, Mom had recently received a letter from a just judge, who had taken her case from the review panels and awarded full health coverage.

One of her most important goals was to return to work, even knowing that any extra income might jeopardize her Medicaid health eligibility; at the time of her death, she was enrolled in a retraining program to learn computer skills that would allow her to work within her physical limitations.

Mom called me in April just to say how happy she was to be finally able to visit the dentist; however, she said, she also had "bad news." The oral surgeon would need to remove seven teeth in order to treat gum disease and rebuild her mouth.

The surgeon preferred to remove one or two teeth at a time using local anesthesia, but because of the July 1 deadline, it would have to be done all at once and require general anesthesia.

This terrified my mother because her last general anesthesia resulted in complications that led to several days of unconsciousness and 10 days in a hospital intensive-care unit. She was also worried about being able to pay the $300 co-pay for anesthesia. My brother and I paid the co-pay and Mom was sent home from the procedure alert, although in great pain. She died less than 36 hours later. The medical examiner's report regarding the exact causes of death is not yet available, but I am certain that the shock of this surgery was a significant contributor.

The Legislature's trade-off of dental coverage (at a fraction of the cost) for a parking garage reminds me of the warning words from the Old Testament preacher Isaiah: "Woe unto them that decree unrighteous decrees, and that write grievousness which they have prescribed to turn aside the needy from judgment, and to take away the right from the poor of [the] people."

According to recent news reports, 65,000 Utah citizens who are disabled or living in poverty will lose their dental coverage in a couple of weeks. Gov. Huntsman's proposal to maintain coverage for the most vulnerable 40,000 citizens would not have required additional taxes, only a transfer of savings from other health areas to cover this critical need. Petty political jealousies obstructed such a reasonable solution.

I understand that the Legislature has many needs to balance while trying to fairly distribute the burden of payment among our citizens, and that former Gov. Mike Leavitt's tainted legacy of services for the poor has left them with some catching up to do. His federal agency, Health and Human Services, has declared that dental coverage is "optional" for states administering Medicaid funds.

I only wish to reiterate that, for my mother, dental care was not "optional." It was, for her, a matter of health and quality of life, and, ultimately, a matter of life and death.

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Mikle South is a post-doctoral fellow in the Developmental Neuroimaging Program at Yale Child Study Center, New Haven, Conn.