Being bed-bound with a common cold as winter nears doesn’t worry junior Jose Sosa as much as his family running out of money. “I’d rather be a little bit sick than go broke,” he said.  Up until recently, this dilemma wasn’t so much a worry for the Sosa family. The state program Healthy Families was helping with the costs of health care, paying for even Sosa’s braces treatment. 

But then a couple of weeks ago, his low cost health care coverage ended. Sosa’s father began to work overtime as an electrician for school portables and, Sosa said, “they sent a letter home saying our health insurance was going to be terminated.” 

Healthy Families, a state program, is directed toward lower middle class families that make too much money to afford MediCal, a low income health care provider. According to Healthy Start coordinator Judy Rauzi this is the group of people who struggle the most with affording health care. “It’s the middle class people who are having a difficult time,” she said, because they are neither making too little money to qualify for MediCal, but they are neither making enough money to pay for full coverage of health care.

  Yet with Healthy Families there is still a minimum and maximum of how much a family can make to have coverage. A family of six, such as Sosa’s, can make between $2,462 and $6,153. Once a family has exceeded that maximum they are taken off of the “low-cost or no-cost health coverage,” according to the flyer found at Stagg’s Healthy Start.

For the last four years, Sosa has adopted a routine to work with his braces treatment. He would brush his teeth before leaving for school, after he ate, and would floss his teeth before going to bed, all to keep his teeth clean and move his treatment along. 

With the termination of his Healthy Families coverage, it was decided that to lower the family’s expenses his treatment would be cut short. “We went to the dentist and said I had to get my braces off because we couldn’t afford it,” Sosa said.

Sosa and his mom drove to Elk Grove Oct. 28 where he would be getting his top braces off.  “It’s gonna be hella weird,” he said as he felt the protruding brackets on his teeth for one of the last times.  Even though he wasn’t looking forward to the pain in store, he was happy and excited, he rubbed his stomach and said, “I’m about to get some In-and-Out when I come out.”

The struggle of affording health care has also come to affect junior Diana Durham and her family. Even though she has full health coverage through her father, her mother and youngest brother have MediCal as their health care provider. “We don’t go to the doctor’s office,” she said, “unless it’s something serious and it’s at the middle of the night in the Emergency Room.” 

In addition, her family cannot always afford certain medical supplies, like vitamins. “For things that don’t seem as important, we go without them,” she said.

  The use of the Emergency Room as a doctor’s office is just one of the issues that politicians are trying to overcome with many proposed health care reform bills, most of which promise to lower the cost of health care to families such as Sosa’s and Durham’s.

In the meantime, Sandy from Healthy Families costumer service, who could only release her first name, discussed the possibility of a public health  care option. “I’m hoping we can still keep the program as long as we can.”

Now without his braces, Sosa chews on a wad of pink bubblegum and pokes at his retainer. “It feels cool, but the retainers suck,” he said. 

He quickly rubs his arms for warmth and explains everything his family is doing to avoid the high prices of doctor visits. 

As a precaution to the winter season, his mother decided to have the whole family get flu shots, all adding up to less than a doctor’s visit or medication to help in getting rid of the symptoms to a common flu. 

Sosa mimics his mom’s high voice and repeats his mother’s words in Spanish, “ ‘Para que no se vayan a enfermar.’ ”

Meaning: So you won’t get sick.