FMANY YOUNG PEOPLE ARE JUST ONE ILLNESS
BY MIA ISABEL LAZO
ourteen years ago, on my last day of kindergarten before Thanksgiving break, I stepped out of my father’s car and straight into a sinkhole. My small body was scraped and bruised, and when my dad pulled me out, he did the only thing he could in that moment: He patched me together with Scotch tape and scraps of paper from his glove compartment. He asked me to be brave and go to the school nurse.
As I watched him drive away, I burst into tears, not only from pain but from wanting to be held. It took years for me to understand why he reacted that way. He was working two jobs, and we relied on food stamps; we had no health insurance. His fear was not only for my injuries but for the medical bill he knew our family could not afford if he missed even a single shift.
This past summer, 14 years later, I found myself in almost the same situation. After passing out one afternoon, I woke up with a fever of 105 degrees. For the first time since childhood, I was uninsured again, this time because my father had lost his job to cancer. I was living more than 300 miles from my parents, completely on my own, and the only medical provider in reach was a single for-profit hospital.
For days, I tried to convince myself I was not sick enough to go to the doctor. I did not have money for an Uber, much less a hospital bill. Eventually, my symptoms became too severe to ignore, and I took a bus across town, dragging myself into the waiting room.
Inside, every seat was filled. Mothers held their children in their laps, because there were not enough chairs. Staff had propped the main door open with a phonebook, because the line of patients stretched all the way to the entrance. In the emergency room, I overheard people talking about how many of them had traveled from counties with no hospitals at all. Many people had Medi-Cal, a California state-provided health insurance for lowincome people, yet they had still been waiting for hours.
I sat in a plastic chair, dehydrated and shaking, crying from fear and loneliness until a staff member called someone to be with me. Hours passed. My IV bag ran dry more than once before anyone noticed. When a doctor finally located my chart in a pile of others, he told me I had severe sepsis and that if I had waited any longer, I would have died.
My first feeling was not relief that I would live but dread. I thought about the cost. I thought about my family. I worried about losing my job. I wondered how I was supposed to build a future when a single medical emergency could bury us
TO THE BREAKING POINT
AWAY FROM IMPOSSIBLE FINANCIAL CHOICES
“The truth is that most young people are one illness, one missed paycheck, or one family crisis away from facing the same impossible choices.”
financially. In that moment, the fear of the bill pressed on me almost as heavily as the diagnosis.
This experience forced me to see clearly how deeply healthcare policy shapes ordinary life. When coverage is cut and clinics close, people are pushed into impossible decisions. No one should have to fight for their life and simultaneously wonder how much that fight will cost. People go to work sick because they cannot afford to lose their hourly wages. They put off taking themselves or their children to the doctor, because even the cost of transportation feels out of reach. They hope their symptoms will disappear. They wait until they collapse at school or work. Parents go without their own medication so their kids can be treated. These are not abstract policy debates. They are daily realities that determine whether people get to grow up, stay healthy, or stay alive.
Young adults especially live at the crossroads of instability and responsibility. Many of us are students, working jobs with no benefits, or supporting family members whose health depends on programs constantly under threat. When insurance becomes unaffordable or disappears entirely, we are the ones most vulnerable to falling through the cracks. And because we have the longest futures ahead of us, we are the generation that will feel the consequences of today’s decisions long after the lawmakers responsible for them have moved on.
My story is just one example of what happens when a system is stretched to its breaking point. The truth is that most young people are one illness, one missed paycheck, or one family crisis away from facing the same impossible choices. When health-care systems weaken, the results are not just higher co-pays
or longer lines. There are people rationing medication. There are people delaying care until it is too late. There are people dying alone in overcrowded hospitals, wanting nothing more than to be held.
Speaking up is not about politics. It is about survival, stability, and dignity. It is about fighting for a future in which getting sick does not mean risking everything we have.
Mia Isabel Lazo is a student researcher and social justice advocate with NETWORK. Her work bridges the topics of environmental and human health, focusing on antibiotic resistance in urban watersheds, and ensuring that all people have access to services that enable them to live a free and just life. A first-generation American and college student navigating policy and injustices, she writes and advocates about the urgent need for accessible, community-centered health policies. She hopes to pursue a career that bridges science, public health, and social justice.
