Sharon has had MS, an immunity disease, since she was 17. In the years before the plant she worked at in her teens and early 20’s closed, she was frequently dropped and picked back up from her employer’s insurance plan. To add to her MS, Sharon now has fibromyalgia and severe asthma. Her chronic diseases and medical procedures kept her from college for nearly 20 years. From 1980 to 1990 alone she received 15 surgeries. In more recent years Sharon has been doing much better. Due to more recent status as a full-time student she’s been eligible for subsidized insurance. This coverage has given her access to a new drug called Sol-Medrol that treats her MS and allows her to live a semi-normal life.

Sharon is now scared about the idea of finishing graduate school and entering the working world. If she makes over $27,800 a year she will lose her disability insurance. She estimates that if she had to go without her disability insurance than her HC costs would reach as much as that income level, $27,800. She’s afraid she’ll be forced to take a low paying job, wasting her education, so she won’t exceed her disability earning cap. “My whole life revolves around healthcare.” And “I’m being co-paid to death,” Sharon said of her situation.