The Faces of Health Care: Susan F.

What has health reform meant to this country? That's a question that millions of Americans answer every day. Susan is one of them. Read more of their stories here.

"Everyone should be free to study their passions and pursue goals, chronic illness or not."

Susan F. from Grover Beach, California, wrote the President last November to tell him how she's benefited from the Affordable Care Act.

When she was 17, Susan was diagnosed with juvenile diabetes, and her family didn't have health insurance. Although she had a 4.0 GPA and was preparing for college, she used her college savings to instead pay for her medical care.

"What good would education do me," she wrote, "if I lost sight, kidneys, or a leg to diabetes?"

Although she had financial aid for her college education, her medical care required her to work in order to pay her hospital bills. Because of her classes, however, Susan didn't have the time to hold a full-time job. Unable to balance her classwork and the financial burden of her health care, she left school before finishing her biochemistry degree.

"For the rest of my adult life," she wrote, "the insecurity of health care meant inferior jobs with better insurance. I couldn't leave a job for fear of not having insurance again."

But on the first day of open enrollment under the Affordable Care Act, Susan signed up for Medicaid, and can now afford her medication, as well as expert medical care.

"I am most grateful this Thanksgiving, that in a room full of people with insulin dependent diabetes, I will never hear a story like mine again."

If this story moved you, just remember that it's one of millions. Add your voice and share one of your own -- and then make sure someone else hears it, too.