For more stories about how the ACA is helping New Yorkers get covered, see our full booklet: The ACA is Working: New Yorkers Tell Their Stories of Getting Covered

Age: 31
Enrolled in: Medicaid
Final premium: Free
Before the ACA, Julia was fighting cancer with no way to pay for the care she needed.
Now, she is in remission and working on staying there, thanks to getting covered.

Julia was set to lose her health coverage right when she needed it most. At 30, she was diagnosed with leukemia and undergoing bone marrow surgery. She needed ongoing treatment. But her Healthy New York plan would no longer be offering coverage in 2014. Julia had put her professional dancing career on hold to take care of her illness, and she worried about how to pay for the expensive cancer care she needed. To learn about her options, she turned to a Navigator at the Community Service Society and found she was eligible to enroll in Medicaid. A year later, she is in remission, dancing again, and thinking of the future. For the first time, she has dental coverage, too!

“If I didn’t have health insurance I would have either died of cancer or I would have survived and be absolutely crippled with the medical bills.”

Special thanks to the Community Service Society for contributing this story!