photo: treedork/ BY-NC-SA

The following is a transcript of a story first broadcast on NPR's Morning Edition.

There is one number that you’ll hear in most health care stories. More than 45 million Americans don’t have insurance or are underinsured. As the debate over heath reform moves out of committee and onto the House and Senate floor, there is another number that a lot of experts wish would factor into the debate: the numbers of Americans without dental insurance. Jennifer Obakhume visits one family dealing with that reality.

Cesscia Rojo and her sister Adriana are young and healthy, except they have dental issues. Major ones. And no insurance. So Cesscia says, when they need care, they’ve been traveling to Tijuana, Mexico.

“I went to Tijuana and that’s where they started the root canal. When I came back, all the problems started with the drugs dealers, so I wasn’t going back to TJ anytime soon.”

The sisters could get medical and dental plans through their colleges. One option is about 500 dollars a semester. But they can’t afford it. So Adriana used a free clinic this summer in Southern California to have a broken tooth pulled. But she needs more dental work.

“I still have a hole in my mouth. It hurts sometimes if I chew bread cuz it goes in there and it hurts, but other than that it’s good.”

The sisters live at a home with their parents. Cesscia says they enjoy cooking dinner together every night.

"See really you know, Mexican culture, we, they hold on to us until we’re married. And we’re not married, and we’re here until we finish school. And then we’ll take them in. And we’re just going to stay together."

No one in the family has insurance. The family has lived legally in the US for years, but Cessica says her relatives often go to Mexico for medical treatment. Almost a million Californians get health care in Mexico each year, according to the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research.

“I know a lot of my cousins have done it and my aunts and uncles have done it. It’s about half as much as you’d pay here, which is still a lot of money, but much less. You’re not going to get a dentist for sixty bucks to patch up your hole. It’s a couple grand."

Cesscia says Tijuana isn’t really an option for medical treatment right now. She still worries about the violence there. So the sisters get basic services, like immunizations, at school. For acute or chronic conditions, they’re on their own. Adriana says she ignores her health issues, like her broken tooth.

"My main concern is that I still have an infection, but we can’t do anything about it, so I try not to think about it."

Both sisters hope they can just postpone dealing with their health until they finish college. Then they hope to earn enough money to buy insurance.

This story is part of Youth Radio’s series Generation Invincible about health care for young Americans.