For Wanda Roberson, a resident of Jersey City, the last several months have felt like an endless uphill battle against both a devastating medical diagnosis and a suffocating bureaucracy. Her youngest son, Tareen, was diagnosed with leukemia earlier this year, sending the family into a tailspin. While his initial treatments and chemotherapy sessions were safely covered under his father’s insurance plan, that safety net vanished overnight when his father retired, leaving the young boy without necessary coverage during one of the most critical fights of his life.
Desperate to maintain Tareen’s care, Roberson turned to NJ Family Care, the state’s program designed to provide affordable insurance to eligible residents. She submitted her paperwork in November but spent seven grueling months trapped in a loop of pending status updates while hospital bills continued to mount. The situation reached a breaking point when officials told her she needed to restart the entire application process from scratch. For a mother watching her child fight cancer, being asked to start over meant facing the possibility of paying for expensive lifesaving treatments entirely out of pocket.
During this period of uncertainty, the family survived on temporary Medicaid and charitable donations just to keep Tareen in treatment. Roberson expressed her frustration and disbelief at the systemic failure, questioning why a documented case of cancer could be stalled by red tape for so long. With no other options left and feeling ignored by the system, she reached out to 7 On Your Side for help, hoping that public visibility would force some movement within the government agencies involved.
The intervention worked quickly once 7 On Your Side contacted the New Jersey Department of Health Services. Within a week, Roberson received the news she had been praying for: her son’s coverage was finally approved. In addition to securing future care, she learned that all previous expenses related to Tareen’s medications and doctor visits would be retroactively covered in full, allowing the family to stop worrying about finances and focus entirely on Tareen’s recovery.