AUGUSTA, Maine (AP) The Maine Legislature is taking up a proposal to cover preventive dental coverage for about 70,000 adults under MaineCare.

Maine is one of 10 states that provide only emergency care for adults, but that would change under the proposal to add preventive services to the state’s version of Medicaid.

A public hearing was held on Monday before the Legislature’s Health and Human Services Committee.

In 2012, a state task force found that MaineCare spent $17 million a year on emergency dental care that could have been avoided.