Healthcare Changes, Dirty Needles, and Me

Within the past month, I received two important letters in the mail.  

The first was a letter from my insurance company.  It stated that the health care law has some new requirements going into affect at the beginning of August.  They will now be covering all costs for birth control, sterilization, well women visits, tests for gestational diabetes, HIV testing, HPV testing, and more.  

Most of that doesn't effect me personally. We're done having kids, and my husband has already had his vasectomy  Still, it made me feel good to know that other people out there will be better off. I felt good reading the letter, knowing people would get the preventative care they want and need.

Then, last week, I got another letter in the mail. It's very personal, and it's very scary. It came from the Colorado Department of Public Health, and it informed me that I might have been exposed to foreign blood from reused needles back when I had my wisdom teeth removed in 2003 (news story here).  It recommends I get tested the viruses Hep B, Hep C, and HIV.  It also remarked that I am responsible for the cost of testing.