Cameo Sampson: How Medicaid Keeps Her Family Afloat

Cameo Sampson is a mom living in Beckley, West Virginia, with her husband and their two daughters. Cathryn is 15 and Evelyn is 13 and lives with Down syndrome and several other medical complications.

Evelyn has been on Medicaid since she was about four years old. Cameo described the challenges of getting her enrolled. “The government made it as hard as humanly possible. And I have a master’s degree. So yeah, it was hard. But honestly, it was the best thing that has maybe happened since we had Evelyn.”

Cameo and her husband both work full time and are covered through the health insurance from Cameo’s job where she has worked for 17 years, though they pay a significant amount for that coverage every month. The assistance they get from Evelyn’s Medicaid makes it possible for them to stay afloat.

Evelyn’s medical needs are significant. “When she was born, she was in the ICU, the NICU for about a month. She almost died. I almost died.” Evelyn had heart surgery at six months old and requires ongoing care at WVU, which is a three-hour drive from their home. She also depends on therapy. “On top of that, just the therapy alone that she needs. If we didn’t have Medicaid, we could not afford all those therapies. The insurance cuts you off at a certain number. I think you’d maybe get 20 a year total. She has physical therapy, occupational therapy, speech therapy, and she gets diddly at school. I mean maybe an hour a week because they can’t hire people and there’s just not enough staff.”

Before Medicaid, medical bills for the various therapies Evelyn needs left the family buried in debt. “We were drowning in medical debt. Drowning…the copays and the deductibles, it was astronomical. We have tons of credit card debt because of it that we’re still paying off.”

Cameo explained that Medicaid allows Evelyn to make progress that would otherwise be impossible. “If she didn’t get additional therapy, honestly, she would be nowhere near as far along as she is. She’s 13 years old and she still wears a diaper and really has a very limited vocabulary. So honestly it’s a blessing that I can work because she really is her own full-time job.”

She worries about what proposed Medicaid cuts will mean for her family. “Those impacts that are going to come from the cut to Medicaid are going to impact families like me…We are fully functioning members of this community, and those cuts might make it impossible for us to still both have jobs. I honestly don’t know how without Medicaid we would even be making it. Without Medicaid, we would have had to declare bankruptcy. We would be on government assistance. We wouldn’t be contributing to this society and community that we’ve lived in for well I’m 45 so 45 years.”

Cameo also emphasized the impact cuts would have on the disability community’s ability to contribute to the state economy. “Everyone that I know is in the same situation that I am. Everyone I know that has a child with disabilities that is on Medicaid are people who are working, have full-time jobs, and who are spending their money in their communities.”

She rejected stereotypes about families like hers. “You can say that we are just fake and we’re not out there, but we are and you’re completely ignoring us when you ignore the community that is keeping up with disabled. We aren’t putting them in hospitals. We aren’t dumping them off on the government to take care of. We are killing ourselves taking care of them so please don’t cut the only lifeline that we get.”

Cameo is pleading with her lawmakers in West Virgina to rethink cuts to Medicaid, “We are real people, and we are begging you not to do this to us. Please don’t cut Medicaid. If anything, please give it more money. We are fully supporting members of this community, and we spend our money here. Please don’t cut things and force us to move to another state.”