Rosa Reyna has glaucoma in her right eye. She treats the disease with medicated eye drops that cost $98 per bottle, refilled monthly. She needs to see an eye specialist every six weeks, costing $177 per visit.  When she was married, she had insurance. She is no longer married and became uninsured. She lives in Southwest Detroit on her part-time earnings from serving at a restaurant and receives child support for three of her four children – a little more than $1,000 a month. With that, she needs to make a house payment and various insurances and pay for medical expenses.

When Rosa became pregnant with her youngest daughter, she stopped working – and couldn’t afford to buy her glaucoma medication. She began to develop headaches on the right side of her head, a symptom of increased pressure in the eye from glaucoma which can lead to blindness. Worse, if the condition is not contained, it could spread to her other eye and she could become blind.  Rosa also stopped paying her auto insurance. Her car was severely by a hit-and-run collision, leaving her with an $1,800 repair bill.

Rosa considered going on Medicaid disability, but she would have been declared “legally blind,” preventing her from driving. Caring for four children without an automobile would be extremely difficult..  She opted to return to work at the restaurant and continue her struggle to meet her financial obligations and care for her children. One day, the Detroit Free Press featured her in an article about the growing number of medically uninsured people in the United States. A Health Authority community outreach worker read about her plight and offered Rosa some insurance options that will cover much of the cost of her eye care as well as provide coverage for her primary care, which she has neglected since her last pregnancy. However, if it wasn’t for the Free Press article and the Health Authority, Rosa may not have been reached and may one day have lost her vision.

Photo: Donna Terek