Where Do You Go When You're Sick...

So What Happened?

Thanks so much for all your answers. @Lisa C. That link is perfect. We're going to head over there and see what needs to be done in order to get us in their system. @Hannah J. - The total of our 401k really isn't all that important. The simple fact is that it's all we have. That's it. It's the whole kit and kaboodle and I fiercely believe that health care should NOT take every last penny you have. It's loosely called a "retirement fund" but in reality it's the "keep a roof over our head" fund because we do not have even one months mortgage saved up right now. After a year out of work we are living paycheck to paycheck and the only think keeping us off the street is this new questionable job. If he loses that, we'll have to cash out the 401k so we can keep our roof. Not that you really need the whole story but I'll hash my life out for you in a nutshell for your further understanding.

My husband and I have been together since we were sixteen years old. We both had jobs and good fortune in our lives that allowed us to save up for a house. While our friends were buying houses at the peak of the housing bubble we just held out. We got pressure to "just do it" and "there's never a 'right' time, what are you waiting for?" but we held fast. I wanted a traditional 30yr fixed mortgage with a low interest rate and a hefty down payment so we rented and saved and moved around for jobs and build up a sizable nest egg. My own mother was pushing me to get an ARM because "everyone was doing it" and she just wanted to see me in a home of my own. It was brutal!

My husband and I got married in 2003. In 2006 I gave birth and under my husbands very amazing health insurance the traumatic emergency c-section birth two months early was entirely covered. We had to pay $100 for myself and $100 for my daughter's entire bill. Our medications at the pharmacy ended up costing more than our hospital stay! I thanked our lucky stars that I managed to get pregnant and give birth while we were under the blanket of such security.

After her birth we both decided that it would be best for me to stay home and care for her based on a number of factors. In 2009 after years of renting, waiting and careful planning we finally decided to become homeowners. The housing market began to decline in 2006 and had a steady decline in the three years since the "bubble burst" so to speak. Home prices finally dropped within our reach and we bought a foreclosed home with a 30yr fixed mortgage and our monthly payment, including property taxes wasn't much more than what we were paying to rent an apartment. I felt like we did it the right way. Shortly after our home purchase the estimated repairs that the home inspectors said would need to be done went much higher than originally thought. Since we put nearly everything we had into the down payment of the home and the replacement of nearly all the appliances because the house really was a beast when we got a hold of it, the remaining repairs wiped us out. The $100 easy wire job on the furnace turned out to be a $5000.00 furnace replacement. Two months after that the upstairs toilet showed massive signs of leakage evident by a crap-water ring on the ceiling of the garage. That was also expensive to repair but we were breaking even. As long as my husband still has his rock steady job that he'd had for many years...

One year after we bought the house and were starting to catch our breath from that massive project, my husband lost his job. With very little savings stored back up we scrambled. I started applying for jobs but only managed to land part time retail work here and there that funneled in a little over than minimum wage because trying to find work in my old field before becoming a mom just wasn't happening. I wasn't getting any callbacks from anywhere. No one was hiring. People were still getting laid off everywhere. It was a jobs massacre.

During the year my husband was laid off and I was scraping in what I could, my gallbladder failed on me. We had no insurance. I went to the emergency room and after getting a $4000.00 diagnosis I pleaded with them to let me get off the gurney to make an appointment to have the surgery as they were trying to get me prepped to have it done right then. I told them my insurance lapsed a few months ago and we couldn't afford the cobra payments because they were over $900 a month for our little family of three! At that price we wouldn't have been able to afford our mortgage payment let alone anything else. As it was, my husbands unemployment covered the mortgage and a few utilities but that was it. We canceled everything as soon as he got laid off. I even turned off the irrigation to save water. The lawn died. We started saving our pee's in the toilet so we could save on the number of flushes we made. We really tightened our belts.

The ER doctor gave me the hairy eyeball and told me I'd be better off going to mexico or canada to get my surgery done because without insurance here in the good 'ol USA, the surgery was going to break us. I burst into tears and said I didn't have a passport. I was born here, my family four generations back was born here. If I'm going to die, I'm going to die here too. Sobbing and in terrible pain, my husband took me home and we planned my surgery. That story's for another time though. The end result is I made it out alive and we got a bill, including the emergency room visit that totaled a little over sixty thousand dollars. That was un-freaking-believable. I thought we were doomed but I began writing letters to the doctors, anesthesiologist, hospital, pretty much anyone who looked at me sideways while I was in that hospital for the surgery who sent me a bill. I paid every bill on time and put as much on the credit cards as I could. Slowly and surely after months of effort and communication, I winnowed my bill down to a couple thousand and paid it in full.

We tried to apply for medi-cal but because of the 401k my husband and I did not qualify. My daughter, however, did. Based off our income our daughter was covered and was able to get her immunizations and have a place to go if she got sick.

My husband recently got a new job. It is hourly and does not offer health benefits. Full time work is not guaranteed. Even when he works full time, the pay is only slightly more than he was making on unemployment after paying for gas for the long commute but he'd rather be working than on the government dole. He is a good man who was dealt an unlucky hand. Because of this new job our income was 80 bucks over the limit for medi-cal qualification so my daughter lost her health insurance. If we cashed out our 401k which has all of 20k in it, we would lose nearly half of it to fees and penalties. About 30% of it will disappear to taxes and there will be a 10% early withdraw fee. So if you take about 40% of twenty thousand bucks, what's left? $12000.00. I have no illusions that the money we've paid into social security will be around for us when we are old. This little drop in the bucket is it. It's all we have to fall on if things go even further wrong. If my husband loses this job for whatever reason, we'll lose the house. If we lose the house we'll need the 401k to find a place to rent and have a few months of rent lined up while he tries to find work again. If it takes him another year to find work, well, we'll be on the street living in our crappy 1995 Ford Areostar van.

It shouldn't cost everything we have to pay for health care. I just want someone to look in my ear canal and tell me if it's infected, and if it is, to jot down a prescription on a pad of paper for me to fill. Do I need to cash out the 401k, giving most of it away to the government and to fees just for that? Should I cash it out, throwing nearly half of it down the toilet to go to a lab once every six months to get my thyroid levels checked? How much is too much to ask?

I am the 99%