Mike Urquidez spent six days in intensive care in September 2024 after being assaulted in a mugging. When he came out, he found himself so deep in debt that he feared ending up homeless.
“I saw the piles of bills coming up,” he says. “I couldn’t make the minimum payments on top of paying for my home.”
Urquidez, now 57, owed more than $100,000. He was uninsured at the time, having decided both his workplace plan and Affordable Care Act coverage were too expensive. “I skipped a year — took a break,” he says. “Then this happened.”
When he called the Ontario, California, hospital where he was…