$700 a month for health insurance for my family? - Poor transcriptionist

When I worked in-house at a local hospital until a couple of years ago, I was able to get health, dental, prescription plan, life, etc., insurance for my whole family (90%/10%) for only $250 a month.  The hospital paid the other half of the premium.  Unfortunately our nice little community hospital got bought out by a nationwide hospital corporation which had a preexisting contract with a national transcription company.  At first I was just like, well, here we go, I guess I'll just see what happens and hope for the best.  I had previously had experience working MT at home for Your Office Genie and then MedQuist back in the late 90s before VR really took hold, so I kind of knew what to expect, though we all really would have much preferred to stay working for the hospital, in-house even, if it had been possible. 

In any case, I just noticed our insurance premiums have gone up again (like they always do).  Now I pay $700 a month for insurance, and my income from MT/editing has dropped by 25% since I now do primarily VR.  After just doing 2011 income taxes yesterday, it struck me that we are now officially below the freakin poverty level!  I absolutely hate the idea of depending on the government at all, but until I can find another career (or my editing speed increases to over 700 lph and they don't cut my pay, which always could happen) it appears that my family qualifies for Medicaid and Food Stamps.  I have wondered if were able to stop at least my company health insurance policy how long it would take to get on Medicaid. 

How humiliating that someone who has devoted 20 years of their life to the healthcare industry should even have to consider going on Medicaid and Food Stamps to keep from going under!  And yet this is how it is.  Where to turn?  Dear God help me make the right choices for my family.