Fifty-seven-year-old Marlys Cox knows what it feels like to live without health insurance.
She did it last year. She's living with Hepatitis C and for years kept paying higher and higher premiums until she couldn't afford it anymore.
"Over the last 10 years, my payments went from about $300 a month to over $1,100," Cox said.
Cox dropped her insurance and then took another hit to her health. Last spring, she was diagnosed with breast cancer. But her substitute teaching job paid too much for her to get help from charities.
"One hospital suggested, in a kindly way, that I get hit by a car," Cox said. "And then I could go into the emergency room and maybe they would find the cancer and I could get treatments because they didn't consider cancer an emergency."
Cox said President Obama's Affordable Healthcare Act was a light at the end of the tunnel.
It helped pay for the drugs she needed. And with that plan under debate in the Supreme Court, Cox wanted to share her story.
On Monday, she went to Washington, DC stood at a podium and spoke to hundreds of people at a pro "Obamacare" rally.
"One of my students said, you're just a substitute teacher and I said I know," Cox said. "But I'm an American citizen and I have a voice."
That voice is now touching others. Tuesday, Cox received a voicemail from a woman who said her story is helping her family now.
"You're an inspiration to all of us. Thank you Ms. Cox. Thank you," the caller said.
Cox hopes her story will inspire others to get on a plan that she said saved her life.