Lilly Sandoval: One Son on Medicaid, One Son Waiting, and a Mom Going Without

At 25 years old, Lilly Sandoval is a mom of two boys in Omaha, Nebraska, the city where she grew up. Her older son is eight. Her youngest was born prematurely five months ago and has severe medical conditions. He is currently home but remains on oxygen.

Lilly has not been able to go back to work since his birth. “I’ve just been being an at-home mom for now,” she said. Her days center on her kids, staying busy as she strives to be there for them and include them in activities.

She has a small circle of support. Through Project Everlast, a community resource that provides support for young adults in Nebraska, she said, “I get support from some of the staff there, mental support, emotional support, sometimes if I needed, financial support.” She also can lean on her family, sharing, “I have my children’s father I can always rely on or ask for help and I have my sister.”

Her youngest son is covered through Medicaid, “I got [his card] the other day. I just got it like three days ago.” She added, “I would assume that they would give it to him specifically because he’s on oxygen.”

After his card came, she got a mailer asking her to sign him up for a health plan. “I was like, he already has it,” she said. “So, it was a little confusing because I think it was someone was trying to scam me or something.”

Right now, Lilly and her older son are without health insurance. She said, “I’ve been working on trying to get me and my other child our health care, but you know how it’s been. Everything’s just so slow lately with, you know, the new rules and everything and everything is just crazy,” referring to the latest regulations, such as work reporting requirements, that have been implemented early in Nebraska.

She is also trying to get Medicaid for her older son, who has been having health issues. For now, he relies on the student-based health center at his school. “So right now he just sees his school nurses and things like that when he has something wrong,” she said. “Cause you know, what else are we supposed to do?” The center even offers dental care. “It’s kind of weird, but it’s part of the school. So they don’t send us no bill.”

Routine care comes with costs the family can’t always cover. “Sometimes when we’re needing checkups or things like that, we have to pay a co-pay,” she explained. “And then we have to turn around and also pay for our medicines. So, it’s kind of a lot. Sometimes we don’t even bother going because of the expense that we don’t, we don’t have at the moment.”

Because of these costs, Lilly has been putting off her own care. “I’ve been needing to go to the doctor for my health, especially, you know, after having baby and all this crazy stuff,” she said. “And right now I just, I can’t … That’s far from what I’m concerned about right now,” she said.

For about a year, Lilly has carried medical debt from care for herself and her son. “I do still have a couple thousand dollars worth of medical debt actually,” she said. She has not been able to find help paying for care, and other assistance has been hard to get as well.

Lilly knows she is not alone in her struggle, “It’s a high amount of people right now struggling due to the health care needs and everything else going on with the government and stuff, messing our stuff up.”

She wants her lawmakers to know, “A lot of us need our health care and a lot of us shouldn’t have to deal with going through these type of situations, you know, we should be able to go and get the care that we need without any problems or obstacles, but, you know, we can’t do that,” she said. “I want them to be more understanding of what people have to go through when they do these type of things.”