COBRA is becoming too expensive for me to afford, and I have surgery scheduled – so I have any options? [New York State]

I was laid off from my job back in April. My industry has been hit extremely hard, and I imagine I’ll be unemployed for at least a few more months, but more likely until the new year (not sure how I’m going to make it until then). I have urological issue that requires me to get a urethroplasty. I’ve been putting it off for a while now, but it’s gotten to the point where if I wait much longer, I could do some serious damage. So I’ve schedule surgery for the end of September. Initially, I was hoping to have a job that covered health insurance by the time surgery rolled around, but with my current timeline, I’m struggling to see how I can feasibly make something work before having to take time off for the surgery.

I struggled for a long time getting my career off the ground, and 2022 happened to be the year I did it. I made a good salary in 2022, but I had mountains of debt that I had accumulated over the years prior, so I really didn’t have much of a savings as I put most of my cash towards paying down my debt. When I was laid off in April, I had an emergency fund that I’d stocked aside, and I was given a little bit of a severance, but most of that money has dried up by now.

When it came time to deciding what I was going to do for health insurance, my one good year came back to bite me. I called the New York State of Health marketplace to see what I qualified for, but I made too much money in 2022 and would have to pay full price for medical coverage (which was something like $500 per month – double my car payment). Figuring I’d have to bite the bullet, I called my doctor to see what insurance they’d accept, knowing I’d need this insurance to cover the surgery – but I was shocked to find out that my provider didn’t accept any marketplace insurance, they only accepted Medicare/Medicaid (due to the nature of my surgery, I had searched out one of the best surgeons in my area, so I figured this was likely why). With that in mind, and not being anywhere qualifies for Medicare/Medicaid, my only option was do enroll in COBRA.

That brings me to now. When I enrolled in April, I said I’d find a way to make the nearly $800 per month COBRA payments. But between then and now, I’ve pretty much burned through my savings and severance, I can’t imagine I can start something new at this point only to tell a new employer I’d need three weeks off just a couple weeks after starting, and unemployment doesn’t pay nearly enough to cover rent/COBRA/utilities/food/etc. at is it without thinking about student loans starting back up.

Do I have any options for reducing my monthly COBRA payments? I absolutely need health insurance, otherwise I can’t even imagine what my surgery would cost if I paid out of pocket (not that I’d even be able to do so, I’d have to go into some sort of payment plan).