help please

[losthorizons]

help please! My son's biological father collects SSI and my son cannot get any benefits because of what my husband makes. I get a lousy $46.50 a month in child support! We barely make 52k a year and struggle paying almost 1600.00 a month for medical and doctor bills, prescriptions, hospital bills etc. We don't qualify for state medicaid because we are over the limit on what we can make. We struggle monthly on everything! It seems the only thing I can do to get my son the medical help he needs is to either give up my rights to him or get a divorce from my husband. As or does anyone else have this problem? We don't have the katie beckett law in our state. I have emailed our state congressman and our senator to try and help. I am not sure what to do next. I do not want to reliquish my rights to him just to get him the medical he needs. In our state (Washington state) it seems if you are not on medicaid, you cannot get your child into a residential facility unless you are on medicaid. What do I do now??
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[Pam R]

We are a family of 3 living on $22K (SSDI) with 2 disabled adults.

We are just over the limit for several programs and have learned to survive by being extremely frugal. The only programs we get are heat assistance ($425/yr.), lower electric bills (lower rate), and help on property taxes.

We buy all clothing and most of everything else except food at tag sales. We use Freecycle and buy in bulk. Shop sales, etc. for food. Do any work needed on cars and house ourselves, if we can.

We did not have health ins. for 5 years. Mass. finally got the Commonwealth Health going and we have health ins. as of March 1 this year.

So there are a lot of things you could do, in other areas, to help make the medical part less difficult. Check out:

http://www.freecycle.org

call your utility company, ask the phone company about bundling services for a discount, read the Tightwad Gazette books by Amy Dacyczyn, check out:

http://www.simpleliving.net/main/

for more frugality tips.

As far as the medical part, it seems to me you have gone as far as you can to get help there. I've not had to pursue this line so I haven't much to offer. Maybe others will.

Good luck.

Pam R.