My name is Dasha Kotelenets and I am a junior at Pratt Institute. About a year ago, I had started experiencing episodes where I get very lightheaded, experience chest pain, and sometimes even faint. After these episodes started happening more than once, I got a checkup at Pratt where I shared my healthcare insurance information. However, Pratt did not share my insurance with the labs they sent my test too and I was randomly sent a $1,000 bill months after my checkup. Having this medical bill over my head was extremely stressful and it took about a year to resolve. 

Even Though this medical bill was resolved, I still have not gotten a concrete answer on what is going on. I keep getting referred to doctor after doctor to find out what is going on with no diagnosis or solution. Every time I go see a new doctor, I have to pay a copay and get stuck with medical bills from all the testing that they have been doing. Currently, I have $300 in medical bills that I have not been able to pay. Without a job, and being a full time student, it has been extremely stressful to have this financial burden over my head. I’ve been extremely anxious over how this can continue to affect me as time passes without me being able to pay  it off and the continuous bills I will get in the future.  

I’m currently being screwed over by healthcare and insurance every corner I turn. While I happen to be more fortunate than others by having a family that is more financially stable, my father just got laid off from his job which has put a tight financial burden on us. This makes it hard to pay mounting bills whilst trying to budget.. While my situation is more fortunate, many people are struggling more and in a lot cases can’t afford to receive any care due to lack of insurance or income. On top of that, I am missing classes for doctors appointments making it more difficult for me to complete assignments. Having a centralized healthcare system and not constantly worrying about copays, deductibles, premiums, will make it easier for everyone to receive the care that they need.

My name is Briegé Carmichael and I am a junior at the University of Buffalo. In my junior year of High School, I suffered from discomfort and clicking in one of my ears. I went to the doctor and while I did a hearing test and failed it, the doctor did not believe that I was having hearing problems. After many tests, I sought out another doctor who finally looked in my ear and noticed I had a hole in it. Even though I had problems with this ear for a large part of my life from ear infections to discomfort, no one noticed the tiny hole I had in my ear. Due to this oversight, skin cells entered the hole and ate away at my inner ear bones leading to massive amounts of damage. After two surgeries and many follow up appointments, I am now deaf in my right ear and have a hearing aid. 

While I had health insurance, there were still leftover costs of almost $4,000 to cover my hearing aid and the surgeries I needed to fix it. I am now responsible for this absurd debt for receiving the healthcare I needed at the time. I am lucky enough to have my parents help me with some of the cost, but they had to stop helping me. Now I am a full time student at the University of Buffalo and have to worry about a $2,700 medical debt at the same time. 

We need access to more affordable and quality health insurance because health directly impacts quality of life. The pressure of medical debt inhibits many goals and aspirations because of the stress of paying the ridiculous costs of healthcare. Every situation is different and I was lucky enough to have the support of my parents to help me pay a large portion of the debt. However, many individuals are not as fortunate and medical debt makes it a lot harder to continue on with their life plans. As a student, it would be even harder. This system inhibits individuals from seeking medical care due to financial constraints which is why we need a change now.

My name is Anthony Calafiura, and I am a current freshman at Hunter College. In the month of October during 2021, I was committed into the psych ward following a failed suicide attempt. I was there for 14 days and being there did genuinely help me feel better until I was hit with the bill after. Thankfully, I was under my estranged father’s insurance but even then I am still currently over 3000 dollars in debt. My mother has refused to help me pay so I’ve essentially had to deal with this all on my own. I was 17 at the time when I was committed so when I tried reaching out to the hospital, there was not much I could’ve done myself. Talking to the hospital people regarding the debt has felt like going around in a circle that ultimately ended in a dead end without genuine help. By the time I was 18, it had already been more than 6 months so my debt was then transferred to a debt collection agency.

For a while, I was scared to reach out because of how long it had been since my hospitalization and even if I wanted to back then, I did not know where to start or what to do. I had many questions that the majority of the people around me simply did not know the answer to. This whole situation has caused me so much stress and in fact was and still is making my mental health worse which is the antithesis of the reason why I’m even in debt. Every time I open my mailbox, every time I receive an 866 call because I’ve come to know that is the debt collection agency’s number, every time I receive a reminder text, a shock of anxiety goes through me. Due to all of this, there has formed a lingering resistance, and even slight fear, of going to the doctor because of the bill that will come after.

It’s important for stories of medical debt to be talked about because for the most part it has felt like I’ve been going through this alone when over 23 million people, around 1 in 10 Americans, have significant medical debt. There needs to be a push in schools for the complex system of health insurance and debt management to be taught because these are very real and necessary skills that I could’ve really used and would still use today. The healthcare system in America needs drastic changes. People should not be forced into debt with little knowledge on what to do after in order to get genuine mental or physical help that they deserve.

I am a 34-year-old woman who after many years of fighting with the hospital finally cleared my medical debt. My story began when I was in high school. I was 15 years old when I was diagnosed with ovarian cysts and fibroids in my uterus. Due to the number of fibroids and the recurring cysts I had to constantly be medically supervised. It wasn’t a financial issue until I became over age and my father’s insurance did not cover me. My visits to the GYN became more frequent the older I became and I did not have medical insurance. The medical bills started coming in faster than I could pay them and the appointments didn’t stop. I went to a “public” Hospital because they were the only ones that would give me treatment with no insurance, or so I thought. At 23 years old and in medical debt, I had to drop out of college to work in order to pay the medical bills, and even with all that sacrifice my head was still not above water. No one ever informed me that hospitals offer low-cost to no cost payment plans for low-income people, and that they can adjust your outstanding debt according to your income. I became aware of these programs after I started to work for a medical billing company. I requested itemized bills and I disputed many of the overcharges that I found. I also called, faxed and visited the billing offices of the hospital in person to dispute and adjust the bills. After many years of fighting with the hospital I managed to lower the bills to a payable amount which I broke into a low amount payment plan according to my income.  Three years later I cleared my medical debt, but my trust in the medical field was hindered. Now I try my best to inform all the patients I come across that they have options, and I make sure that they know they don’t have to live with medical debt.

I am a junior at Pratt Institute with a major in Creative Writing and a minor in Psychology. After college, I hope to pursue a job in creative writing.   

My family and I qualify for Medicaid although we’ve had to switch to metro-plus because Medicaid wasn’t as accessible for our needs. Due to the limitations under Medicaid, I really struggled with being able to access certain doctors and therapy because a lot of therapists didn’t take my insurance. It took me months to find the care I needed. In one instance this caused me to go into debt, because I went into a therapy office thinking that they covered me. However, days after the session they informed me that it was not fully covered by my insurance and gave me a bill that I couldn’t pay off for months. I’ve also noticed the more advanced therapy treatments I need like EMDR are inaccessible to me because it is only for people who have the funds to pay out of pocket. My family and I also struggled with getting our prescriptions filled under Medicaid as many pharmacies, for example Walgreens didn’t accept our insurance.

I think we shouldn’t have to be upper class or rich to have good care. Lower-income individuals are always at the short end of the stick when it comes to these things. Therapists don’t take insurance because the health care system doesn’t pay them enough. In return this causes therapists to overcharge and only cater to upper-class people which leaves us with nothing. This is not fair to those who have chronic illnesses who cant afford to pay for treatment. It’s ridiculous we have to pay to get the help we need to live.

I am a sophomore at Hunter College studying media. I’m planning on working in the design field in the future like with UX/UI design. My aunt hurt her back during covid. It was right after she canceled her healthcare insurance, because she couldn’t afford to keep paying for it. She couldn’t afford to pay out of pocket to go to the doctor, so she just stayed at home and did home remedies to help her back. I have insurance covered though my parents’ family plan. I am concerned about losing insurance when I age out of my family’s plan.

During covid, my mom was switching jobs and lost the insurance for the family. We had to be extra cautious not to get sick or hurt, because then we would have to pay out of pocket even for a yearly check up. By having a more equitable health care system and universal health care, everyone can have access to the most basic human care, like a yearly check up or even going to see a dentist. By having those available, people can be more protected and more healthy.

My name is Jodi Lewis and I am a junior at Hunter College student with a major in English Literature, minoring in Human Rights. After graduation I plan on attending graduate school in order to attain my dual degree Masters in Public Administration and Health Administration. There was never a time that I can remember that a family member was denied healthcare, however I am currently without health care because I am not a citizen of the United States nor am I a green card holder. As a result I am currently on Obama Care where I receive healthcare and medication at a reduced cost, which I have to renew each year because of my status. I am concerned that there may be a time that this benefit will no longer exist and I will have to pay for health care which is expensive. As a student who pays out of pocket and out of state tuition, which includes paying for my own books and transportation, I think it is important for healthcare to be easily accessible to those who experience financial hardship especially students like me. Health is a priority and a human right to everyone regardless of their status. The cost of living in New York is very high, and the last thing that I want to think about is not being able to see a doctor because I don’t have insurance. Having to factor in paying for rent, food along with school expenses, sometimes I feel stressed.

Azania “Sammie” Maitland is a rising Junior who majors in Political Science and minors in Legal Studies at Hunter College. She hopes to work for the State for 1-2 years prior to entering grad school to study Public Policy. Knowing the challenges that uninsured or underinsured New Yorker’s are facing, she feels privileged that she has a family that is more or less able to get by. As a full time college student she is insured via Medicaid and has struggled with the gap in adequate dental coverage. She’s a self-professed dental-phobe due to some bad experiences in the past, because finding a quality dentist with her insurance is a challenge. Unfortunately, the costs for dental work out of pocket can be astronomical. It worries her, if she gets a cavity, an infection, or needs something like a root canal – that she wouldn’t be able to get appropriate care to fix the issue.

I am a SUNY Cortland student in the second year of my undergraduate degree in Bachelor of Science for Biomedical studies. I was born in Ghana and moved to the Bronx at a very young age. I chose to attend SUNY Cortland for many reasons, but finances were not a focus of mine. Cortland was appealing to me because it was far from home while also being close enough to be comfortable. When I came to my first open house before I confirmed my attendance at Cortland, I learned that the campus size and class and club opportunities were ideal for me, and I was set on where I wanted to go.

My mother is a nurse, and my insurance is through her job. The biggest stressors that have occurred for my family and I is medical debt and payments on medical debt. A big problem that my family has faced is feeling rushed to pay and having the idea that consequences will come from not paying them on time. I have a firm belief that equal health care is important to a successful society. Healthcare is one thing that our government can control and is a basic human need and right. I think that if the government wants to provide for the people and provide advocacy for the people, their first focus should be on making a form of state-wide healthcare. People struggle with so many things in everyday life and healthcare shouldn’t be one. People should be able to rely on their healthcare to be available and simple to use. Equality is a very important idea for me because I think that if New York state will be providing insurance it should have equal and basic plans for all. People get taxed for things such as fixing roads or community construction but not for healthcare and that’s not right.

I am a SUNY Cortland student in my fourth year. I am a dual major in Spanish and Sociology with a concentration in Criminology. I was born in the Dominican Republic where I lived until I was 12 when my mother decided it would be better for us in the United States. I currently live in the Bronx when I am not away at school. I have been at SUNY Cortland for my entire college career. I chose to go here because my high school volleyball coach attended SUNY Cortland and they promoted this college all throughout high school. Along with that, I wanted to go away to school, and Cortland provided the best EOP program for myself and my family.

In my family, insurance is through my mother through the government. There have been many times when a member of my family needed a prescription, but insurance wouldn’t cover it, so we simply just went without it. When I was in high school, there was a point when I didn’t have insurance, and we weren’t able to get our annual physicals; the school almost kicked us out. At this time, I didn’t have insurance because my mother was switching to a different insurance company due to my sister going upstate for school at it being too far for the insurance to cover. 

Recently, I went through a tough situation with medication from my insurance company. An uncommonly known fact of birth control prescriptions within the United States is that to refill a prescription of birth control pills a patient needs to attend an annual appointment with their OBGYN. When it was time for me to attend my appointment, I was in the Dominican Republic, and instead, I made an appointment with a doctor there. I was not aware that the United States doctor would not accept this visit and still wouldn’t prescribe my pills. If I were to go off these pills, since they’re hormonal, it would affect my body in multiple ways even if it were only for a few days. So, prior to running out of pills, I decided to go to the closest planned parenthood to me. Because of the type of insurance that I had, I was worried that I would have to pay completely out of pocket. Before insurance, the visit, tests, and my prescription would cost over $100 on top of the $105 I had already spent on transportation to and from the facility but luckily it was covered. If my doctor and insurance could have made an exception one time, I would have been able to avoid all of this. 

I feel that we need to make a universal, single-payer form of health care for so many reasons. With a universal form of healthcare, my mom wouldn’t have had to change my insurance because my sister went away to school, my family could have always gotten the prescriptions they needed at a decent cost, and I would have never had to go to planned parenthood which some insurance companies do not cover. If I am working and paying taxes in this country, I believe insurance shouldn’t be something I need to be concerned with.