ObamaCare: What it Means Locally

ObamaCare, as the Affordable Health Care Act has been dubbed, will make health services more accessible to low-income families, students and others who have slipped through the cracks for years.

In Santa Cruz County,  that upholds the law will have huge impacts at Salud Para La Gente, a Watsonville-based network of low- and no-cost medical and dental clinics on the Central Coast.

“Bottom line, it’s really good news for our community,” Dan Sedenquist, Community Relations Director for Salud Para La Gente,  “We need to be providing health care as a minimum to all the people living in the county.”

Thursday's high court ruling removes a barrier in providing health care to all, Sedenquist said. Justice John Roberts “made the bold statement to the county that health care is important and we’re grateful," he said.

“Formerly they were uninsured and now they’re insured, Sedenquist said. "They’ll come.”

The law is expected to bring health care costs down. It also means that young adults can stay on their parents’ policies; coverage can no longer be revoked because of a lifetime cap; and no one will be denied insurance because of preexisting condition.

“This ruling from the Supreme Court ends a lengthy and bitter legal battle," Congressman Sam Farr, a Democratic U.S. Congressman who represents much of Santa Cruz County, said in a prepared statement. "Millions of American families can breathe easier knowing that access to quality, affordable health care is still the law of the land.”

Partisans have claimed that so-called Obamacare would put small businesses out of business. Not so, say local owners.

"I'm already paying health care for my employees," said Lisa Carter, whose family has owned the car repair shop Water Star Motors for 19 years and has five or six fulltime employees. "Isn't that a cost of doing business?"

Bookshop Santa Cruz's owner agreed:

"Bookshop Santa Cruz applauds the Supreme Court ruling," said owner Casey Protti.  "The cost for providing health insurance for our employees have exploded in the last decade making it almost impossible to provide coverage to our employees the way they deserve and in a way that allows our business to remain financially secure. 

"Bookshop is thrilled that there will be new systems and tools to help our employees get the coverage they need."

Salud Para La Gente clinics are federally qualified health care providers. They serve a mix of patients with federal, state and private insurance, as well as those who pay out-of-pocket for medical expenses. But a large chunk of Salud's patient base is "charity care" for uninsured patients, many of whom are undocumented residents.

"If you have a medical need, we care for you," Sedenquist said.

About 19 percent of Californians are uninsured, according to the Associated Press. That's more than 7.2 million people. Sedenquist said Salud is prepared to take on many of those patients in Santa Cruz County.

“There will be a lot more folks covered by Medicaid, and we’re a Medicaid provider," he said. “We’re geared up to have all of these formerly uninsured people come in. We really are the delivery system for the newly insured.”

Salud operated a clinic in the Beach Flats neighborhood in Santa Cruz and three in Watsonville—Clinica del Valle del Pajaro on Neilson Street near the hospital, the Green Valley Clinic at 280 S. Green Valley Rd., and its main clinic at 204 E. Beach St.