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.