[Albuquerque, New Mexico]

So I have TriCare and they dropped me from my health insurance with absolutely no notification that they were doing so. I recently had to got to the ER due to adverse reaction to some medication I was prescribed and they took my insurance card and said everything was ok. A week later bills start coming in from the hospital for several thousand dollars and so naturally I am like WTF and call TriCare and the hospital to figure out what happened. TriCare said they dropped me from insurance when I turned 21 (despite me submitting the paperwork to stay on until I am 23 since I am in college) and that I had no coverage.

Since I am a college student, I don't have thousands of dollars to pay this out of pocket and I won't qualify for retroactive Medicare coverage since I live with my parents and they claim me as a dependent. It seems wrong that neither TriCare or the hospital bothered to let me know I had insurance and that I had no way of knowing how much it would be until way after the fact. I am now 7k in debt and the bills keep coming. What should I do? Please help!