This is part of an ongoing series that gives Bronx writers a chance to share their personal stories on the state of healthcare in America.

by  Deaglan McEachern, November 12, 2018

I vividly remember that awful day. August 4th 2014. Lori and I had been married less than a year. She had recently quit her corporate finance job, gone back to school and started her own business. That day she woke up, turned to me, and said, “I can’t feel my arms and legs.” She was 28 years old.

There is no way to adequately describe the overwhelming fear, the piercing dread, that washes through you when the woman you love says something like that. I gathered her up and drove to the hospital Emergency Room. After admitting her on an outpatient basis, they wheeled her to the radiology department for an MRI. They directed me to the billing department.

We thought we had great insurance, just like we thought we were young and healthy, but they wanted $5,000. On the spot. In the moment we were most vulnerable, in the moment my wife’s health was most unclear, the system required $5,000....

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