Cameo & Evelyn Sampson - Beckley, WV

Speaker: Cameo Sampson, 45, female

Hi, my name is Cameo Sampson. I'm 45 years old and I live in Beckley, West Virginia. Say hi. Hey. That's Evelyn. Evelyn does have Down syndrome, along with a few other medical complications. She is currently on Medicaid. She has been Since she was maybe 4-ish, um, it was a whole process and it was very difficult to get on, but honestly, It was the best thing that has maybe happened since we had Evelyn. We were drowning in medical debt, drowning, and I had insurance through my job. It was private insurance, but the co-pays and the deductibles, it was, it was astronomical. When she was born, She was in the in the, I guess the ICU, the NICU for, um, about a month. She had heart surgery when she was 6 months old. On top of that, just the therapy alone that she needs: Physical therapy, occupational therapy, speech therapy. 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. If she didn't get additional therapy, honestly, she would be nowhere near as far along as she is. And 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. My husband and I have 2 daughters. We live in West Virginia. We both got master's degrees in West Virginia, 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. Everyone that I know is 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. 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 the 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. Thank you.