$650

Think of what $650 represents to you on a monthly basis. To us, it is food, gas, insurance, etc.

Now, think if suddenly you had to come up with $650 extra a month without a raise. That is what Clark and I will be doing since the Cobra Subsidy that was passed as part of the federal stimulus act in February 2009 ended this week.

Health care though Cobra for us will increase by 65% next month.

Clark was told he had cancer 4 days before he and hundreds of his coworkers were let go as part of a known lay off.

We knew at some point the Cobra Subsidy would end. We were more than thankful while it lasted and that Clark qualified for it. We were more thankful that we had health care coverage while Clark has had cancer period.

When Clark was first diagnosed with cancer, we were told to contact PG@E for rate reduction and to contact state/county programs for assistance.

The only program we qualified for was getting health care for Emma under First 5. We choose not too since she was already covered under Cobra in which we were paying.

Kaiser does offer a low cost health care program for children as well.

Since we had a mortgage we were able to pay while Clark was/is on disability, we have retirement and a few small assets we were overqualified for all state/county programs. We were overqualified because we had too much. We had worked hard to acquire a bit piece of the American dream of having a house with a yard and it was too much. We strived to achieve what generations of my family had done before.

And yes the last year, we have been more than blessed not to have had to ask my family for financial help. If we are wise, we can maybe make it another year without drowning ourselves in the sea of debt and foreclosure that so many of our friends have gone through. After a year, it remains unknown.

I wonder and pray about the thousands of others that will not be able to afford the increase in the COBRA payments. I pray for them, because someday "them" could be us.