If you get an education and work hard, you can move ahead in life– that’s the story of the American dream. Valamere followed that path, completing a doctoral degree in Industrial and Organizational Psychology.

For the last 15 years, Valamere has been teaching in several colleges in Florida and nationwide. Because she has only taught as adjunct faculty, she rarely has medical benefits.

Last year, Valamere had a dental abscess in her mouth, but due to the high cost of the copayment, she couldn’t get the lab work and testing to determine how serious it was. “It got so bad that I had to go first to Urgent Care, and later to the emergency room because the abscess created an infection on my body. Now I’m stuck with a $6,000 bill.”

She appreciates that this could all have been avoided if she had had $175 available for the copayment. “For the most part, I’ve gotten my health insurance from the marketplace but there were some years I couldn’t afford it. I can afford the monthly premiums but there are a lot out of pocket costs”, she shared.

A changing economy and low college enrollment nationwide has left Valamere under-employed.

“I’ve been very stressed out because I don’t know how I am going to make my rent next month. I had a rent increase in May and now another one in September. The solution is to move out of South Florida, but my father lives here. He is sick and I’m helping to care for him, which makes it more stressful. I’m single so that means I don’t have any additional support, even emotional support.”

“I keep dumbing down my resume and applying, unsuccessfully, for any kind of job. I’ve tried to talk to both healthcare institutions about setting up a payment plan, and they wanted me to pay 200 a month, which I can’t currently afford. I keep getting the bill monthly and they say I can’t apply for charity care because the amount is too low, according to their policies”.

Like Valamere, thousands of Florida residents find themselves strapped by medical debt. “This is how it looks living in my shoes, well educated, with the highest degrees, and this is the place where I find myself. I can’t control the education market, I can’t control the cost of healthcare. I’m resourceful and I’m getting all the help there is available.

Valamere has channeled her frustration with her medical debt by becoming a health justice advocate. She has been collecting petitions for the expansion of Medicaid in Florida. “I do hope there is some type of change that comes about, maybe one day we have free healthcare,” she added.

Close to 100 million people in the U.S. have medical debt, and most cases of bankruptcy are due to medical debt. One essential step to limiting medical debt in Florida is for the state to expand Medicaid. To learn more, see here.