By Genevieve Romero
Medical debt is crushing New Mexico families like mine.
When I was a high school sophomore, I got really sick. It was frightening for my entire family. I needed to see a doctor, but it wasn’t easy.
My dad is a Vietnam veteran and his CHAMPVA insurance covers me too, so we thought we wouldn’t have any problems. But we did. I had to wait a month to get in with my primary care doctor, but they didn’t know why I was sick. They referred me to an ear-nose-throat specialist who referred me to an eye doctor who referred me to a neurologist. I went to doctor after doctor, but our insurance didn’t cover any of those specialists. The bills piled up.
Four years later when I was a sophomore in college, I got strep throat. I couldn’t get an appointment with my primary care doctor, so I had to go to the emergency room. But I didn’t get the care I needed at the ER. A rapid strep test came back negative so they sent me home. Only when I got an emergency appointment at the student health clinic and they did a regular strep test was I correctly diagnosed and treated. By that point, I was at risk of the infection spreading to my heart. I had to stay in bed for a week. I made a full recovery in time, but I was shocked when I got a $1,500 bill for the ER visit. The hospital made a mistake and never sent the bill to my insurance. Before I knew it, I was getting calls from collections. As a working college student, I didn’t have $1,500 to pay a bill that I should never have received in the first place.
I’m now a senior in college. My parents have paid off the bills from when I got sick in high school, but I am still trying to sort out payment for my ER visit, going back-and-forth between my insurance provider and the hospital.
My lifetime of dealing with medical bills has shaped the way I think about healthcare. I have lost count of the times I decided not to seek the healthcare I needed because of the fear of incurring more medical debt and getting caught in insurance limbo. I used to think that going to a doctor when I was sick was the right thing to do. Now, I don’t know. I have to weigh how sick I am against how high the doctor’s bill will be. That’s not right.
As a college student, I am trying to improve my economic circumstances. I want a chance at all the options that my future should hold–home-ownership, graduate school, travel. But the harsh reality is that my healthcare needs have impacted my credit and my economic future.
I learned the hard way that health insurance is not always reliable–even for veterans. What’s more, uninsured New Mexico families do not deserve to be punished with medical debt because they cannot afford healthcare or private insurance.
The Medical Debt Protection Act can change that. This important bill, sponsored by Albuquerque Sen. Katy Duhigg, will stop hospitals and medical providers from sending anyone to collections if they are at or below 200 percent of the poverty level. Instead of ruining a patient’s credit for years, providers will need to work with patients to help them pay their bills. Plus, hospitals won’t be able to charge uninsured people higher prices.
The Senate has already passed this bill and I urge the House to do the same so that the next generation of New Mexicans won’t be weighed down by medical bills like I am. That way they can follow their dreams without the nightmare of medical debt.
