Rylee Sandlin of Nashville is only eight years old, but she already faces health insurance barriers that threaten to shape her life for years to come.
Rylee is fortunate to have health coverage under her mother’s insurance plan. But like so many other parents, the Sandlins have found that even “good” coverage like theirs does not really protect a child with costly health care needs.
Rylee has autism. She has had a difficult, frustrating struggle to develop communication abilities that come effortlessly to most children. But with determination, and the aid of her parents and professional speech therapy, Rylee has come a long way.
She still has a long way to go, though, to develop the skills needed to achieve independence and to fully enjoy relationships with other people. Therapy, which costs $150 per session, remains essential, but Rylee’s insurance won’t cover it. The Sandlins have spent nearly $50,000 paying for the therapy themselves, but now they have exhausted their resources.
It is heartbreaking for the family to watch Rylee losing ground, knowing that it does not have to be that way. “There is nothing harder in this world than to see that your child is suffering, and to know that there is something available to help, but to not be able to provide it for them,” says Keely Sandlin, Rylee’s mom. “We just want for Rylee what every parent wants for their child. It is plain wrong that, even with two parents with decent incomes and ‘good’ insurance, children like Rylee should have to go without. Surely, in America, we can do better than that.”
Rylee is fortunate to have health coverage under her mother’s insurance plan. But like so many other parents, the Sandlins have found that even “good” coverage like theirs does not really protect a child with costly health care needs.
Rylee has autism. She has had a difficult, frustrating struggle to develop communication abilities that come effortlessly to most children. But with determination, and the aid of her parents and professional speech therapy, Rylee has come a long way.
She still has a long way to go, though, to develop the skills needed to achieve independence and to fully enjoy relationships with other people. Therapy, which costs $150 per session, remains essential, but Rylee’s insurance won’t cover it. The Sandlins have spent nearly $50,000 paying for the therapy themselves, but now they have exhausted their resources.It is heartbreaking for the family to watch Rylee losing ground, knowing that it does not have to be that way. “There is nothing harder in this world than to see that your child is suffering, and to know that there is something available to help, but to not be able to provide it for them,” says Keely Sandlin, Rylee’s mom. “We just want for Rylee what every parent wants for their child. It is plain wrong that, even with two parents with decent incomes and ‘good’ insurance, children like Rylee should have to go without. Surely, in America, we can do better than that.”
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