Next year, the state will ramp up to expand health care coverage to millions under the Affordable Care Act. By 2014, it expects to have its new insurance exchange up and running and open access to Medi-Cal to about a million more residents. For the newly insured, the changes could mean fewer trips to the emergency room and access to preventative care through a “health home” for the first time.
Below, San Diego resident Janet Salus tells Teen Producers from the Media Arts Center San Diego how preventative care and health insurance saved her life.
In 2008, Salus noticed a scab on her arm that wouldn’t go away. She remembered a doctor who once warned that her skin type was vulnerable to skin cancer and made an appointment to get it checked out. She was diagnosed with squamous cell carcinoma, a type of skin cancer that, if caught early, can be easily treated. Had she not had insurance to cover the cost of her eight treatments, she would have had to pay more than $17,000 in medical bills and perhaps would have waited much longer before going to the doctor in the first place.
Salus is covered by Medicare.
Video Credit: Oscar Perez, Khalid Eltayeb, Jose Reyes, Jodi Cilley and Lisa Salus
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