I am a Communications Design student with an emphasis in Graphic Design at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn. My family struggles a lot with healthcare because a lot of hospitals and medical services near us don’t use our insurance, so even though we’ve never been denied medical services, we still struggle a lot to find in-network services. My parents’ jobs don’t provide insurance, so we all have to apply by ourselves, and it’s expensive. Currently, I am using the school’s student insurance; I switched because of complications with my parents’ insurance, but going through the school is harder than using other insurance companies because I didn’t receive any guidance – I have to find the information out on my own. 

I used my school insurance last semester, but the bill (which included the last bill from the past year until now) wasn’t charged until a week ago in a bulk amount of over $1000 rather than in the smaller, but more frequent, amounts that it was supposed to be charged in. I have to settle the bill in a week, otherwise I’m going to be charged an extra $200 fine; I’m also unable to register for my classes next semester because of this fee that I have to pay, so I’m stuck because I can’t get this amount of money on such short notice.

A more equitable healthcare system would be less burdensome for families that have issues to worry about besides healthcare. So many different things in life require insurance, and that costs a lot of money on top of expenses like rent. With universal healthcare, we wouldn’t have to worry as much about hospital bills; we could just focus on recovery instead of stressing over how much debt we may have after recovery. Under a single-payer system, no one would have to worry about whether or not they will be treated, no matter how significant the illness is. It’s better to focus on life and death without the variable of money and feelings of stress due to the potential of leaving debt for family members.