Left: Adora Campis (red hat) with parade participants at the annual Three King’s Day parade in Harlem; Right: Adora and Maryanne Tomazic of Raising Women’s Voices – NY at HCFANY’s Annual Meeting Thursday, January 9.

Guest post: Lois Uttley, Director, MergerWatch Project/Raising Women’s Voices-NY

Adora Campis is a part-time bilingual (English and Spanish) outreach worker for Raising Women’s Voices-NY. She will go pretty much anywhere to find uninsured women and families and tell them about the new health coverage options available through NY State of Health, New York’s Marketplace!

Last Monday, she joined the annual Three King’s Day parade through East Harlem to talk to uninsured people along the route in this neighborhood with many low-income, Spanish-speaking people.  (She’s in the red hat in the photo left, above). Later in the week , she spoke at HCFANY’s annual meeting in Albany about why she is so passionate about her work.

Here is her story:

I’m sure you want to know about the faces of the uninsured that I have met in New York City. This much I know. From a homeless person at a soup kitchen starving for medical care, to a degree-holding woman facing loss of coverage and having to pay too much for COBRA – they want and are eager for affordable health care.

The timing is right. The uninsured are diverse and come from all walks of life. Some of them are people in between jobs, others are at jobs that have no health benefits. Some are recent college graduates, others are new citizens. Some have young kids, others are still kids themselves.

Sometimes they are people like me. I am a single mother and raised two children on my own. My son unexpectedly needed health care while he was in college. Luckily he had health insurance. It wasn’t the best, so we still got a $1,000 bill. But there was peace of mind knowing that he was able to get the care he needed.

I didn’t have health insurance though. Last year, I had worked for a couple organizations part-time, but still couldn’t afford to buy health care coverage on my own. Because New York decided to expand Medicaid eligibility this year, I was able to enroll in health insurance through NY State of Health and now am covered.

That’s what I love about going into the community to talk about these new changes. I know it works. It can be scary approaching strangers at community events to talk about health reform, but I’ve found that everyone is very passionate about this. They have personal, sometimes painful stories. But they all end in the fact that this change couldn’t be any more timely. People welcome it!