Back in 2006 I went to the Emergency Room as I had a piece of meat stuck in my throat, it would not go down nor come up. After trying to remove it with nitroglycerin pills, they had to send me in for "minor surgery" and use the endoscope to pluck it out. At the time I had just gotten married, and 2 weeks after getting married we learned the wife's son was getting booted from the institution he'd been places in and we had to make room for him, and it was right about the time he came to live with us I had the ER proceedure, abd the Wife & Kid were both on Disability and SSI, as a result I qualified for medical assistance and we all qualified for food stamps. The wife was suposed to be taking care of paying the bills, including the medical bills, apparently she missed this one. By the time I found out about it it was too late for medical assistance, I was also in the process of getting divorced, I had to go in for neck surgery for which the wife would not even help transport me to & from the hospital. After the neck surgery I was not allowed to return to work which was only P-T at minimum wage to begin with. I've since recovered but I'm faced with almost certain daily neck pain, I've tried to apply for disability twice but ultimately was turned down.
I tried to get a decent job with the State Dept of Transportation thinking working on the road crew would be better than the grocery store job. Well they offered me a job in the Welcome Centers Division, Part-Time still but more per hour. Only now I've come to realize there was absolutely no guarantee of a certain number of hours per week, some weeks I do work 5 days, but mostly the average is 2 days as some weeks I don't work at all, and to boot, all these hours worked are approximately 4 hours distant from my home where I went to the ER. Well I hung in and did a real good job when work was offered and although I had little hope of finding a F-T job as these are very appealing jobs and people tend to keep them once they land one, I know I would. Well miracles do happen, a couple of F-T openings did appear, I bid on all of them and have interviews for them (even though they were all across the state) and I was quite certain I would get one. Well again a miracle (or so I thought), I have been told a F-T job awaits me, but my luck is such that just days, wait, maybe only hours......or maybe only minutes before they offered me a F-T job assuring me of an income that would allow me to catch up on all my bills, and providing me with medical benefits for future ailments, the evil governor stepped in and slapped a hiring freeze on state jobs. This was also a slap in my face after working so diligently, to now be considered less than a citizen or so it would seem.
So now I am back to square 2, (1 up from square 1), I'm looking for some sort of F-T Employment with some benefits (like who isn't looking for work these days, seems the whole nation/world is seeking work) and I get a call from some collection company demanding payment or they will recommend litigation. First off, I wanted to verify the debt is still owed, I thought all medical bills from back then were, but all I ever got from the collection company was harassment & threats, so I will be checking with the Doctor's office, and yes, I do remember having this issue come up maybe a year and a half ago....I recall something, but not all the specifics, about applying for assistance under Hill-Burton, now after reading up on Hill-Burton, I guess that only covers Hospital Bills, NOT Dr. bills, and this all stems from a woman who was supposed to be managing our finances, I was busy earning the money, but as she became less willing to be a wife and became more self-centered, she left this slip through the cracks, and later when I was hospitalized for the neck surgery, she had me medical assistance cut off leaving me floundering for some way to pay for needed medical attention.
Most recently, just before being so rudly contacted by the collection company, my car, needed to get to and from work, had a problem, seems the one spark plug kept getting blown out of the engine and finally after the 3rd instance, I was not able to re-insert the plug, the threads used to hold it into the aluminum block engine/head were stripped out.....totally gone. The garage I chose said a new engine would cost $5200 plus incidentals like head gaskets; a new head would cost $2500 plus incidentals, and they thought they could put in a Helicoil Thread Insert which is what Ford recommended as the repair proceedure. This cost me $550.00, and I thought the problem was fixed. It also leaves me with not quite $450 in my account and the mortgage of $325 due by April 5th. Well I thought they had fixed the problem and drove off and drove maybe 40-50 miles when the check engine light came on again, the engine had a bad miss and was barely able to keep running at idle. It cost me another $75 to have the garage that supposedly fixed the problem, diagnose that my cylinder #2 was only able to achieve 50% of normal compression....there was a leek somewhere (burnt or bent valve, scored cylinder walls, no one knew for sure, just that it would cost lotsmore to fix it.
I had to go back up to my house in North Central PA and resurrect an old plymouth minivan that had been sitting idle since I had filed for divorce in 2006 and try to get myself some sort of transportation to continue working. (my headquarters location was only 9 miles from my brother's house where I was staying until I find F-T employment, but I had to frequently drive 60 - 160 miles to other locations to achieve that 2 day average workweek), and this vehicle cost me $36 to register/license, $152 to repir and inspect, and I just got the insurance bill, well it wasn't as bad as I'd feared, it was only $35 due now, but that only covers me till June 20th, then I'll probably have to come up with another $250 to $300 for insurance.
I've taken the Ford to another mechanic and he estimates the repair to be about $1100 to $1600. What I really need help with right now is if anyone knows where I can get financial assistance for the medical bill ($1047.00) to get them off my back, and/or if anyone knows of a good F-T job with some benefits that I might apply for.I've been lookig to work in the field of non-profit agencies in fundraising, especially in Special Events planning.
Thank you in advance to anyone who can help me, I really hate to be asking, I was brought up to take care of my own problems, but all of a sudden they just stacked up faster than I can solve them.
Oh, by the way, I do volunteer here in the Lehigh Valley, PA, I am trying to help raise funds for a local youth center hoping any effort I put forth to keep active in fundraising would help me get a decent job.
