SALT LAKE CITY -- Sixty-one percent of Utahns questioned in a new survey said the legislature should have provided the $2 million sought by the governor for critical dental services for the aged, blind and disabled.

The survey of 500 residents was taken by Survey USA for KSL-TV. A sampling that size has a margin of error of about 4.5 percent.

Twenty-six percent of the respondents agreed with not providing the money and 13 percent were not sure.

Gov. Jon Huntsman put the proposal to restore dental services on the agenda for the special legislation session last week, but the legislators refused to consider it.

Bill Tibbitts of the Anti-Hunger Action Committee said, "If the emergency dental money is not put back in, what you're going to have is that people are going to get toothaches, those toothaches are going to become infected, they're not going to be able to get the treatment, and eventually they're going to wind up in the emergency room."

Dr. Craige Olson, chairman of the Utah Oral Health Coalition, said the Legislature's action was "frustrating because it's causing pain that could be prevented. And frustrating because it's costing me, as a taxpayer, many more times than it should because I can do it preventively way less expensive than in a surgical setting."

Lawmakers said dental care lost out to other priorities, including funding for mental health, the medical examiner and birth defects.

Senate Republicans said the Medicaid program already was running a $10 million deficit for the fiscal year.

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Information from: KSL-TV, http://tv.ksl.com/index.php

This story appeared in The Daily Herald on page B7.