My name is Jaylin Guzman, and I am a student at Bronx Community College. I was hospitalized after developing a severe rash on my hand that quickly spread throughout my body. My hand became extremely swollen, making it difficult to function, and soon my joints became stiff and painful. Simple movements caused intense pain. After a few days, it became difficult to stand at all, and even breathing felt painful when I moved. No matter what position I was in, I was in constant pain. It was the most frightening experience of my life.
While I was in the ICU, I received attentive and compassionate care. I felt safe and supported. However, once I was transferred to the general patient unit, my experience changed completely. Nurses and doctors were rarely present, communication was minimal, and despite still being in pain and struggling to move, it was difficult to get help when I needed it most.There were moments when I had to wait 15 to 20 minutes for assistance just to use the bathroom. Eventually, I had to remove and reattach my chest monitors on my own because no one was available to help me. I was also expected to walk without assistance, even though I was weak, in pain, and at a high risk of falling. No patient should have to navigate their care alone, especially when they are vulnerable and afraid.
Experiences like mine are a major reason why so many people in my community hesitate to seek medical care. People fear high costs, inadequate treatment, and being ignored once they are no longer considered an emergency. This fear leads to delayed care, worsened health outcomes, and preventable suffering.
The New York Health Act would ensure that every New Yorker has access to comprehensive, high-quality healthcare regardless of income, employment, or immigration status. This would remove financial barriers and prioritize patient-centered care. Healthcare should be a human right, not a privilege reserved for those who can afford it or advocate loudly for themselves while in pain.
My name is Thuraya Saleh, and I am a student at Bronx Community College. I am speaking not only from my own experience, but on behalf of my family and many others who are harmed by the gaps in our healthcare system.
Shortly after the pandemic, one of my family members went to the hospital for labor and delivery. The experience itself went well, but about a week later, our family received a medical bill in the mail. Despite having health insurance, it did not cover the full cost of care. This unexpected expense placed a serious financial strain on my family at a time when we should have been focused on recovery and care, not debt.
I have faced similar challenges myself. I went to the doctor for a medical concern and was prescribed medication that I needed for my condition. However, my insurance did not cover the medication, forcing me to pay out of pocket. As a college student, these costs are difficult to manage and create unnecessary stress on top of school and daily responsibilities.
These experiences show how insurance coverage alone is not enough. When essential care and medication are unaffordable, healthcare becomes a privilege instead of a right. This burden falls hardest on low-income and immigrant families, who are often forced to choose between their health and basic necessities.
Passing the New York Health Act would ensure universal healthcare, allowing people to receive the medical care they need without fear of financial hardship. No one should be punished for giving birth, seeking treatment, or following a doctor’s orders. Healthcare should support our communities.
My name is Asha Goodman, and I am a student at SUNY Purchase. I was prescribed contraceptives by a doctor at a SUNY school and was informed about some possible side effects. At first, I experienced emotional changes, which I was told could happen. But one morning, I woke up unable to see out of my right eye. This was a life-altering medical emergency I was never warned could occur.
When I returned to campus and sought help at the school’s healthcare facility, I was met only with apologies. I was told this side effect was not disclosed because the risk was considered “too low.” That explanation did nothing to address the fear, confusion, or harm I was experiencing. I immediately stopped taking the medication and went to CityMD for urgent care.
CityMD conducted an eye exam but told me they could not help further and referred me to a specialist. On my way to that appointment, I received an email informing me that I owed nearly $1,000 because my insurance did not cover the eye test. While I was trying to protect my vision, I was also forced to worry about debt.For months, I faced repeated billing notices and had to go back and forth with my insurance company. Eventually, my state healthcare insurance did cover the cost but only after unnecessary stress, fear, and time spent fighting a system that should have been supporting me.
This is why passing the New York Health Act matters to me. Universal, comprehensive healthcare would ensure that people can receive the care they need without fear of financial ruin. I have seen how medical costs affect not only me, but also the people I love. Watching someone suffer is painful enough, no one should also have to worry about whether they can afford to survive.
My name is Jessica Estevez, and I am a student at City College. Like many students, I depend on healthcare systems that are supposed to support me but instead, I’ve been dismissed, ignored, and burdened by a system that prioritizes cost over care.
I experienced severe back pain so intense that simple movements felt unbearable. When I sought medical help, my pain was brushed aside and explained away with a comment about my body rather than taken seriously. No testing, no treatment, no solutions. This kind of dismissal is common, especially for young women, and it discourages people from seeking care at all.
Mental healthcare has been no better. Appointments that start late, therapists who appear annoyed, and a lack of real engagement leave patients feeling unheard. Mental health support should be about care and connection and not checking boxes or rushing people through sessions.
Even basic health needs are neglected. At my school, menstrual products are often unavailable, and when they are, options are limited. Pads, which many people rely on, are rarely provided. Menstruation is not a choice, yet, people are still forced to pay for it.
Beyond my own experience, I see how medical costs impact my family. My grandmother must pay thousands of dollars out of pocket for necessary medical care. While my mother helps as much as she can, the financial strain affects all of us. We’ve had to make impossible choices between basic necessities like food and electricity.
This is not an individual failure, it is a systemic one. Medical debt forces people to prioritize survival over health, even as the cost of living continues to rise. No one making $15 or $17 an hour should have to choose between paying rent and getting medical care. Healthcare should be accessible, affordable, and respectful. Until it is, students, families, and entire communities will continue to suffer. We deserve better and we need the New York Health Act to make it happen.
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.
