Mark Sindel, who suffers from artery disease, learned that a new county-run program will pay for his treatment, including the bills he's racked up this year for emergency room visits.
"My stress level, everything, just went down, man," said Sindel, 53, who lives in a motor home in Rohnert Park and was completing paperwork for the program last week at the nonprofit Petaluma Health Center.
And Sindel's best friend and roommate, whose broken ankle forced him to temporarily leave a new job at Home Depot before he had enrolled in its insurance plan, learned he will get the surgery he needs to return to work.
"I didn't know what I was going to do. I was already making plans to go to Mexico for the surgery," said Dennis Robison, 53.
Sindel, Robison and their respective ailments are being handled by the first publicly run component in Sonoma County of the federal health care overhaul passed in 2010.
The new program, paid for by federal, state and county governments, increases access to health care for low-income county residents as well as broadening the array of services offered.
Called Path2Health, it is projected to provide an additional 2,600 uninsured adult residents with health care coverage. It does this chiefly by easing eligibility rules set by a predecessor plan, the County Medical Services Program, or CMSP.
Key changes include raising income caps - which largely eliminates deductibles that officials say have prevented people from joining - and dropping a rule that excluded anyone with more than $2,000 in assets.
Under the program, which remains in place on a more limited scale and for many fewer patients, Sindel would not have qualified for coverage because his motor home is worth about $4,000.
Sindel said he last had health insurance four years ago when he was manager of a San Anselmo grocery.
Path2Health will cover the full cost of his treatment and medications for peripheral artery disease. The disease caused blood clots in his leg leading to the partial loss of his toe. The pain prevents him from wearing a shoe.
"I want to get on my feet and working, but who's going to hire me if I can't wear shoes," he said. "It's true, when you have your health, you have everything."
Robison will be treated under the CMSP because he needs surgery soon. He then will be transferred into Path2Health, which has a longer application process, said Elia Solar, a Petaluma Health Center outreach coordinator.
Path2Health is open and free to residents age 21 to 64 - an age group not eligible for Medi-Cal or Medicaid - who earn less than the federal poverty level, about $10,890 for a single person.
Officials say it places new emphasis on preventive health care and also includes many new mental health care benefits, including individual therapy, medication and same-day appointments.
"The big thing we're seeing is the integration of behavioral health; people are taken care of as a whole person," said Peter Rumble, director of health policy, planning and evaluation at the Sonoma County Health Services Department.
"It is getting us one step closer to making sure that our neighbors have access to quality care," he said.
Path2Health rolled out Jan. 1. It is projected to eventually cover about 8,450 low-income residents, compared to the 5,850 in the CMSP in 2011.
"It's the state's first chance to do something innovative with health care reform," said Marion Deeds, interim assistant director of the county's Human Services Department.
The CMSP, part of a 34-county consortium, provided $35 million in indigent care in Sonoma County in 2011, said Lee Kemper, executive director of the program's governing board, which also administers Path2Health.
The county's share of that cost was $13.8 million. Because the federal government covers half of Path2Health, the county's expenses are not expected to rise despite the projected jump in enrollment.
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