Any of my fellow Genx'ers dealing with worsening health or needing recommended tests but do not have health insurance?

Yes, of course. I'll assume you don't know much, so pardon me if any of this is something you already know. Please quadruple check this with *your state*, in case somehow your state has different rules than what is to be expected from the federal concept of Medicaid. First, she **CANNOT PUT IT IN A *ROTH* IRA**. Roth, because it's an after-tax contribution, would not count as a deduction against MAGI. She has to put it in a *traditional* IRA (aka tIRA) or any other before-tax retirement account (regular 401k--not Roth 401(k)!--or a 403(b) or maybe 457(b) if she's an educator or public employee. Probably a 529 and Health Savings Account would work, too, but I don't know about that.) For a traditional IRA, I don't know if it can be set up to have auto-deductions and contributions through the employer. I don't *think* so but I really don't know. That is how a 401(k) or 457(b) plan works. For a traditional IRA, you just make the contributions yourself by transferring money to your broker and doing the step on their website that deposits it into the IRA. For me, at this point, that can take as little as about 60 seconds of using my computer. Of course, you first have to open a tIRA if your wife doesn't have a retirement plan at work like a 401(k). That's not hard, though. You could go to Schwab.com or another broker (Vanguard, Fidelity, others) and just open one. Or go into a branch and meet a nice person to do it. For 2025, each of you can contribute $7,000 a year into a tIRA or $8,000/year if you are over 50. For 2026, that bumps up a bit to $7,500 and $8,100. And even if only one spouse is working, the other spouse can fill his/her space just from one spouse's salary. (Double check me on that.) If your wife works 40 hours a week and makes $1/hr more, that's $40 * 52 weeks = $2,080/year over eligibility (or something like that--check the math!!). She could just deposit, say, 1/12th of that amount every month into a tIRA. Plus now you have that money working for you for your retirement. Once it's in the IRA, don't just let it sit there as cash, invest it into a broad market ETF and just forget about it for like 20 years. Keep in mind, you want to plan on not touching this money until you're at least 59 and 1/2 years old, or else you'll get a 10% tax penalty (which may not sound like much, but it should be considered a lot.) Also keep in mind that the federal poverty level goes up a little generally every year and that is true for 2026, so are you sure you still don't qualify with the new levels? Does your state use a 5% disregard and are you factoring that in? Does this help? I'm happy to answer more questions if you have them. A