Sally, 52, doesn't ask for much.

She and her husband, who lost his job, get by on her wages -- about $29,000 before taxes.

They don't use credit cards. They drive their 14-year-old car sparingly. They tend a vegetable garden and save a ton by avoiding highly processed foods.

"We're very old-fashioned people," Sally told me. "We live very carefully."

But as careful as they are, Sally and her husband, 53, have an ever-present worry that's always a factor in their decision-making. They fear getting sick.

Going hand-in-hand is the dread of losing everything because of limits on the health insurance they can afford.

The cost of health care -- Sally's employer doesn't offer health benefits -- is the wild card that drives the northern Lancaster County couple's frugality. Health insurance, like adequate rainfall to a farmer, is essential at their age but completely beyond their control because of their income.

They are too young for Medicare and earn too much for Medical Assistance.

Yet they have medical needs. Sally has degenerative disc disease and suffers from migraines. Her husband's health woes are even more debilitating. He has rheumatoid arthritis, takes five medications and needs blood work every month.

And so they worry.

"People who are honest and hard-working want a chance," said Sally, who asked me not to use her real name because of the stigma attached to economic distress. "We want a chance of being able to pick what we want and what we need: hospitalization and lab work. But when insurers talk about affordability, my idea of affordable and theirs, I'm afraid, is going to be very different."

That's why Sally is concerned about life after adultBasic.

For several years now, Sally had peace of mind because she and her husband qualified for the state's low-cost health plan for the working poor, known as adultBasic.

They pay a $72 monthly premium and copays of $10 ($20 for specialists.) They can have two hospital stays per year costing them only $1,000 out of pocket.

Because of the huge demand for adultBasic, Sally and her husband were on a waiting list for 18 months. When a letter arrived saying coverage was starting, it was like "Thank God!" Sally recalled. "Now we don't have to worry about something horrible happening (healthwise) and having them take everything we own."

But those worries are flooding back. Gov. Tom Corbett is letting adultBasic expire Feb. 28, making life that much more difficult for 41,424 Pennsylvanians who, like Sally, are already living close to the edge.

Options exist for saving adultBasic. It was largely funded by Pennsylvania's four Blue Cross/ Blue Shield companies, which have a cumulative surplus in the billions. As nonprofits, the Blues must contribute to social needs, and in 2005 Gov. Ed Rendell pressed the Blues to fund adultBasic for five years.

Last year, adultBasic cost $166 million, or about 3 percent of the Blues' surpluses. I know I'm not alone in thinking the Blues could continue to shoulder adultBasic without much pain. Instead, Corbett is passing the pain on to the working poor.

With adultBasic's demise, Corbett is telling enrollees to turn to the Blues' Special Care plan. It costs a lot more and covers less.

Sally sees no other choice. She'll pay the $275.75 monthly premium.

"I don't know where the extra $50 a week will come from," she said. "We'll get through it though, because we have to."