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Drexel Medical School Holds Affordable Care Signup Event

By Pat Loeb

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- With the deadline to sign up for health insurance under Obamacare fast approaching, Drexel Medicine today hosted a sign-up event, targeting women in particular.

Today, certified application counselor Myra Shanks helped Garolyn Jones go through the signup process at healthcare.gov.  Jones' children are insured through her ex-husband's employer, but she has had no insurance since the divorce -- and it worries her.

"I have children, and if I can't take care of myself physically, then I can't take care of my children.  So I need insurance," she told KYW Newsradio.
It's a problem that Dr. Sandra Wolf, executive director of the Women's Care Center at Drexel, sees a lot.

"Women are usually the family member who is taking care of their children, their partners," Wolf said today.  "Many of them are working and uninsured themselves.  We have many, many safety net programs in place, but that means that people will go from one to the other to the next with lots of gaps in their care," she notes.

So, she says, she was delighted to partner with other nonprofits for the signup event, which drew people such as Monique, who mused about how a health issue may affect her financially.

"If something goes wrong with me in the future, what am I gonna have?" she wondered aloud.

Enrollment closes March 31st.

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