Before the Covid-19 epidemic, German Amaya used to work in a luxury hotel in Miami, but he lost his job, health guarantee and his life, while his family finds themselves facing a very exorbitant hospital bill.
The 55-year-old man, from El Salvador, died in a Florida hospital after a battle with Covid-19 disease.
His wife, Glenda, took him to the hospital on July 15, after he was experiencing breathing difficulties. It was the last time she saw him alive.
She recounts, "I cried and begged them to let me go in so that I could see him and that I was his wife. I needed to be with him at that moment."
Glenda, 46, was the first family member to contract the emerging coronavirus in June, three weeks after her beauty salon reopened.
"Without realizing it, I spread the infection to everyone in the house," she says.
Her daughter Azareth, 11, and her 70-year-old mother developed slight symptoms. Her son, also named German, who was 16, had a strong fever. Her husband died on August 7, after more than three weeks of hospitalization, and he suffered a coma for nine days.
"It all happened very quickly," says Glenda sadly.
And while Florida was becoming a major focus of "Covid-19" infection in the country, the family was facing another tragedy of the American health system.
In the United States, health insurance is usually linked to the employer, so losing a job, as happened with millions of Americans since the start of the pandemic, often means the absence of medical coverage as well.
Anger and disappointment
There are solutions, but they are often not within reach of the unemployed, while the many administrative transactions discourage individuals to continue this path.
The German Amaya family used to depend on his income, but now she has to add to the pain of separation a great financial burden.
"They have a huge hospital bill, as well as the cost of funerals," said Wendy Walsh, a representative of the Hotel Industry Association. "This is something a mourning family should not face now."
The bill has not arrived yet, and it usually takes weeks or months, but it can reach tens of thousands of dollars - based on numbers that patients usually incur without insurance or insurance.
German Amaya was among hundreds of employees laid off overnight due to the pandemic from the Fontainebleau Hotel, where he had been working for about 10 years in Miami.
His relatives accuse the hotel of not giving him the opportunity to maintain his health insurance despite his dismissal, as theoretically permitted by the Federal "Cobra" law.
However, the hotel management refutes this accusation and asserts that it is not obligated to suggest this matter to its laid-off employees "as is the case with the vast majority of employers in private companies."
Faced with a complex system that is unaware of its absence, the Amaya family feels that they are without any support at a time when they need the most help.
"I feel a lot of anger and disappointment. We have struggled to get here and are treated as if we do not deserve what we have achieved," said Son Jarman.