This is not right....

Couple sells possessions for medical debt
No cure for 2 children’s illnesses
By GRACIE BONDS STAPLES

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Friday, January 30, 2009

In a quiet suburban house, with an old Honda Accord in the driveway, a mother and father wonder what the next day will bring.

With just hours left before the bidding was scheduled to close, Brittiny and Gregg Peters took turns talking about their troubled financial state, hoping the $20,000 deal to sell most of their worldly possessions wouldn’t fall through.


Their lives together had begun so nicely and with so much promise. Brittiny Peters, 28, stayed at home with the couple’s three children, Ayla, Noah and Eli. Gregg Peters, 30, taught tennis to provide for them all.

Just a year ago, the Gainesville couple envisioned themselves enjoying the good life — work, stocking their home with the latest in furniture and electronics, sending their children to the best schools.

Instead it has come to this: selling all they own — save their house and some bedding —to pay for their children’s mounting medical expenses and just to survive another day.

“We wanted to do everything we could on our own to take care of our kids,” said Gregg Peters.

Diagnosed with gastrointestinal problems at 11 months, Noah, 2, needs constant medical care.

In August the oldest child, 7-year-old Ayla, was diagnosed with a rare auto-immune disorder called Still’s Disease, a form of arthritis.

As the medical bills multiplied and it dawned on the couple that these were lifelong illnesses with no known cures, the Peterses started to feel like a tube of toothpaste being squeezed.

Gregg Peters, who grew up in Snellville and graduated from Brookwood High School, saw his income moving in lockstep with the nation’s stock market. One week it was up and the next week it was down. More and more he was falling behind. They joked they might have to sell everything they had.

By New Year’s, it wasn’t a joke anymore. They were stripping down to the bare essentials.

At first the plan was to sell in bulk every item they could live without, said Brittiny Peters, “but we decided we could live without all of it.”

They started the bid out at $20,000 and a friend posted their personal property on eBay.

They would use $15,000 to pay off their children’s medical and household bills and the rest to set up an emergency fund.

Because doctors had told them therapy was most effective before Noah reached age 3, it was more important to get him what he needed than to hold on to their material possessions.

Brittiny Peters said her son has to have speech, occupational, physical and behavioral therapy on varying days five days a week, four hours a day. Therapy alone, she said, cost about $1,200 a month, some of which is paid for by the state.

The couple said the family gets Medicaid but does not have private medical insurance.

Just when they began to worry they wouldn’t be able to pull it off, Gregg Peters said Brittiny logged onto the computer to find a Texas woman had met their bid sometime about midnight Wednesday. She wanted everything, from the 52-inch Panasonic television to the bed frames to the 2002 gray Chevy Tahoe.

“She shouted,” he said. “It was awesome. People had said no one would take it all together so it was a good feeling.”

The Rev. Tom Smiley, pastor of the Lakewood Baptist Church where the Peterses worship, said he is proud of the young couple for working to get their financial house in order.

In addition to auctioning off their possessions, the Peterses, Smiley said, are enrolled in one of Lakewood’s stewardship classes and has a coach “helping them plow through those waters.”

“This was not about a handout, it was about them trying to do what they could to provide for their family,” he said. “I’m just real proud of them.”

Before Gregg Peters headed to work Thursday afternoon, he said, “We did this with good intentions for our kids. As a father and husband it makes me feel good to know I’m doing what I can to care for my family. It was either do this or sit on all this stuff and do nothing.”

Wow I fear we are going to see more stuff like this with the economy being so bad and health insurance is getting more and more expensive.

I am relatively healthy but I am still slammed with a $5,000 deductible every year and always have some medical bill i am paying on. It has been like this for me for the last 5 yrs but i have been able to handle it so far!!!

I am happy that it all worked out for them.

Graycap23 said:

wow. but we have money to fund a war and line the pockets of fat cats on wall street