Sara S., San Diego State University


Sara, 22 years old, has had Type I Diabetes for 12 years; every day is a challenge to keep her blood sugar in control. In November of 2008, Sara found out due to working a part-time job that she would be removed from the government run health care plan that she was on. Just 20 years old, she did not realize how difficult finding health care would be. Without insurance, in any given month Sara would have to pay $500 for her insulin, $156 for her insulin pump supplies and $200 for 200 test strips.

When Sara found out about the cancellation of her health insurance she tried to purchase insurance from her college campus, San Diego State University. However, after speaking with the school social worker, she found out that the plan would not work for her. It would only cover a maximum of $500 a year for over-the-counter prescriptions, nowhere near enough to meet her needs.

Looking to the private market has also not been an option. Although she works part-time while in school to help pay the rent, she does not earn nearly enough to pay the premium of a private market plan. As a result, Sara has stayed uninsured, scraping together various ways to maintain her health.

Nia H., Washington, D.C.


Nia, a med student at Howard University, thinks health care is a right not a privilege and therefore, was already very happy that reform was signed into law.

"I was actually really excited for other people because I didn't think it was going to apply to me," she says.

She's since learned that because of the Dependent Coverage provisition that she will be able to return to her mother's quality coverage, "Now I'm even more excited," she adds.

Nia had been on her mother's insurance, but was dropped after she graduated from undergrad and got married. Currently, she has the student health care at her college, and while it covers basics, visits to the clinic often lead to expensive specialist referals or trips to the emergency room. both carry steep costs, and so, despite a nagging ankle injury, Nia has stayed away.

"In February, I hurt my ankle and I was going back and forth about it, but I just didn't know how much it was going to cost me," she says. "If I have to get an MRI or something, that's going to be really expensive."

So the aspiring doctor avoids the doctor, the incongruity of which is not lost on her, "It's ironic because I'm in med school, but no one's taking care of me."

She sees this with her friends too, the ones still in school and the ones freshly graduated.

"It's hard when you're first starting out, for people graduating from college or getting a job. I even looked at getting my own insurance, and it's like $200 - $300 a month." Along with rent and other bills and student loans, she finds that she and her peers often let things go unchecked, worrying about the expenses.

With the dependent coverage provision however, she thinks things are looking up, not just for her, not just for her fellow students, but for Americans everywhere.

For herself, she says, "I think that I won't be scared to go to the doctor anymore. I think it will cover a lot of preventive things that I should have taken care of a long time ago."

But more broadly, she's glad that when she begins to practice as a pedicatrician in 2014, she'll be doing so in a country that covers its citizens.

"Most people go into medicine because they want to help people and you can't help people who can't come into the office because they can't afford it. This helps more people because it allows doctors to see them, and then we get to help those people."

Paula V., Berkeley, University of California at Berkeley


Paula, a senior at University of California at Berekely, has an insurance plan through her college that has limitations - limitations that ultimately put her thousands of dollars in debt.

Last year, Paula was a normal 21 year-old, excited for her junior year of college. The only thing was a small pain in her back, but it was the last thing on her mind.

The college plan did not cover her first MRI, PET scan or many blood tests her doctors required. In between chemotherapy, Paula fought with her insurance carrier, which refused to cover her last round of chemotheraphy. Her insurance declared it medically uncessarry, and Paula now owes about $80,000, an impossible burden for a working student.

"It's no secret that as Americans we live in a culture of debt ... I've worked since I've been old enough in an effort to stay out of this culture, but at the age of 21 I joined this culture due to circumstances beyond my control," she said.

Brittany M., University of Texas at Austin


Brittany is a full-time undergraduate student on a full academic scholarship at the University of Texas at Austin.

As an infant, Brittany was adopted and subsequently raised by her great-grandparents. Both her mother and my father, over the course of her childhood, suffered from emphysema, diabetes, hypertension, and high cholesterol. She grew up in Kountze, Texas, a town of 2,100, located about 20 miles north of Beaumont. For most of her childhood, her parents would wake her up at five o'clock in the morning once a month, carry her out to the car and take her on a three hour drive to Galveston so they could receive affordable medical care.

Brittany's father died of small cell lymphoma and lung cancer when she was 15 years old. At 16, her mother died of congestive heart failure. As a 17 year-old orphan, Brittany became a victim of the system, spiraling into several thousand dollars in debt after an emergency room visit for a severely sprained ankle. She was hassled by debt collection agencies that the hospital and doctors' groups sent her bills to, and ended up spending all of the benefits from her parents' life insurance policies to pay the $10,000 that one emergency room visit cost.

When Brittany enrolled in college at UT on a full scholarship, she looked into the school plan. She could not, however, afford the cost, and has gone through college without insurance. When she got sick and had to go to the emergency room, she was left with a $17,000 bill to pay. Now, instead of leaving college debt-free, she continues to pay down her medical bills.

Had full health care reform been in place, Brittany would have been able to take advantage of Medicaid. Luckily, in 2014, students in Brittany's position will be able to do just that.

Ryan P., Texas State University - San Marcos

Ryan is a 25 year-old college student at Texas State University. When he was looking for plans, he found that the insurance offered by his college was exactly like his father's plan, and cost a reasonable $1,400 for the year. Ryan gets covered to go see his doctor, pays a $100 co-pay to go to the emergency room, and a $20 deductible for check-ups. The plan also covers prescription medication, and was easy to enroll into.

Having moved off of a catastrophic plan over the summer, where he paid $2,000 in premiums, Ryan is satisfied with his current coverage. However, even this "good" college plan doesn't cover preexisting conditions and has a $100,000 annual cap. Luckily, Ryan is healthy and has not had to use his plan or face those limits.