I grew up in a single parent household with my mother and grandmother, my experiences with health care primarily consisted of the occasional visit to the doctor’s office. I was healthy growing up and almost never got sick, but when I did my mother made it her priority that I saw our family doctor. My household would be classified as low income, but these doctors visits were always covered by my mother’s insurance plan through her employment and usually came with a small copay. These experiences at an early age shaped my views of the health care system and because of my experience, I assumed everyone had access to affordable healthcare and the low cost of our copays gave me the impression that health care was affordable. These realities made it difficult to fully understand the privilege I was given in being able to access health insurance.
I’ve always been aware of the gang violence that has persisted within my community. You hear the stories and sometimes see the yellow caution tape from recent incidents, but it’s a different when the situation actually happens to you. I went on to spend the next 9 days in the ICU of Long Beach Memorial hospital where I began the long and treacherous recovery process to relearning how to swallow and regaining strength in my speech. Months after the incident, I received mail from the hospital that detailed the list of expenses I had acquired. You should’ve seen the look on my face when I realized I had racked up $97,000 in medical expenses. My heart sunk, but I was reassured when my mother told me the majority of these expenses would be covered by our health insurance plan and what remained would be picked up by the Crime Victim Compensation, a government program that reimburses victims of violent crimes.