Expand Health Coverage - The Colorado Trust

STRUGGLING TO AFFORD HEALTH CARE

Kristen Castor is on of many Colloradans who struggle to afford the health care they need. - Expand Health Coverage - The Colorado TrustBorn two months premature with cerebral palsy, Kristen Castor has never qualified for private health insurance. Despite a lifetime of roadblocks, Castor, 54, always has fought for what she needed. Long before the Americans with Disabilities Act, principals barred her from attending her neighborhood schools. More than once, she had to prove that her brain was powerful and that she could climb stairs like any other student, albeit more slowly.

Castor went on to graduate from high school with honors, major in Greek and Latin in college, earn a master's degree in linguistics and serve in the Peace Corps in Liberia for three years. She taught English in Africa, then later to immigrants in the United States before becoming a disability rights advocate in Pueblo.

For years, Castor barely saw doctors to avoid medical expenses. But she recently needed knee surgery and faces having to get the other knee operated on soon. As well, her shoulders are worn down from 50 years on crutches, requiring rotator cuff surgery.

Castor, who participated in a study to help understand the factors that influence Coloradans' ability to pay for health coverage, says she wants to be a responsible citizen and pay her own way in life. At the same time, she faces heart-wrenching dilemmas: spend down her savings to qualify for Medicaid or continue skipping vital health expenses to conserve her cash, keep her house and stay financially solvent.

Castor has encountered many people with similar dilemmas who would fare much better and save the system money if they received consistent, preventive care. All her life, Castor has fought for access for the disabled into schools, the workplace and public transportation. She believes that achieving health coverage for all is one of the final frontiers for equal access: adequate health care will give more independence and dignity to both the able-bodied, and those with physical and mental challenges.

Learn more about the new study, The Cost of Care: Can Coloradans Afford Health Care.