Age: 33
Enrolled in: Gold Plan
Final premium: $120
Before the ACA, Oliver was unemployed and opening a business.
Now, Oliver doesn’t have to worry about bankrupting his business because of a health emergency.

Native Australian, Oliver never worried about having health insurance as he grew up in a country where health care is free. When he moved to the US luckily he remained healthy. “Growing up in Australia paying for healthcare is not even a concern. I never saw, first-hand, the repercussions of not having health insurance and needing it.” It was only when he opened a coffee shop in Washington Heights that he realized how catastrophic illness or injury could be. If he were bankrupted because of an emergency surgery, not only would it impact him, but it would impact his business partner and the coffee shop. Oliver got information about the NYSOH marketplace from Get Covered NY, but it wasn’t until his roommate researched the plans and really urged him to sign up that Oliver got covered. He found out that he was eligible for financial assistance, which greatly reduced his premium. Now he is very grateful for the coverage, “I feel relieved. I had no safety net. I guess I had blinders over my eyes about how precarious that could be. I’m just really lucky that I haven’t had to feel the wrath of not having it. But it certainly is a huge pressure off my mind.”

“I really needed it because of the fact that I’m a business owner now. I have to be accountable to my partner. We’re a corporation. If something were to happen to me, it could bankrupt me. Hence, the store would suffer and my business partner would suffer because of it.”

Special thanks to Raising Women’s Voices for contributing this story!