Dissolving Marriage to Pay Mecial Bills

[aprilcait]

So sad!

http://www.propeller.com/story/2008/09/29/medical-costs-force-couples-to-divorce/?icid=100214839x1210801134x1200591735


ETA: Please excuse the typo in the thread title.

 

[MonkeyPie]

Omg! How awful and STUPID. Our government really sucks sometimes :/ I feel so bad for people like this...my parents are not much better, though they are younger. They are filing for bankruptcy because everything sucks so bad.

 

[~*Snow*~]

I saw something like this on TLC or Lifetime. A father and mother divorced so their daughter could get cancer treatment. While married they made to much to qualify, but the mother divorced with the child qualified for the treatment to be subsidized. So sad, the gov't is so silly, they make such a big deal about the sanctity of marriage but are backhandedly forcing people divorce to get critical medical treatment...

 

[Independent Gal]

That''s just sick.

No pun intended. Seriously, this country has GOT to do something about healthcare.

 

[Tuckins1]

Sad...

 

[purrfectpear]

The same reason you see people in their 70''s living together. No sense in having your SS benefits cut just because you made it legal.

 

[neatfreak]

That is so sad.

 

[elle_chris]

There are many young couples who are in the same boat. Lots of single mothers that live with their boyfriends because their combined income would disqualify them from Medicaid. These people have a household income of 28-30k a year. But to qualify for free healthcare, they need to be a family of 4 earning under 33k in NYC. So they choose not to get married.
The system fails, over and over and over....

 

[Diamond*Dana]

Aw, I want to cry for them! That is so sad

 

[~*Alexis*~]

I do medicaid for the state of MD as part of my job and I also help people apply for financial assistance. You would not believe the amount of people that come into my office and tell me that they were told they had to sell their house in order to qualify, their cars or some other sort of asset.

Unfortunately I have to go off of HOUSEHOLD income. That includes income you would get if you had a roommate who was renting a room from you and a spouse. They also will take into account if your life insurance policy has a cash value. They will tell you that you are over scale if you have whole policys rather than term life insurance.

If any can offer some advice if you get into debt with a hospital or clinic or with medical bills, PLEASE call the business office about your bill. Most hospitals offer financial assistance and they also have a higher asset limit then Medicaid. They will work with you to pay your bills and most of the time will take a one lump payment and eat the rest of the bill. They have things built into charges to cover these types of issues.


I don''t agree with everything they do, but I do also see A LOT of people that abuse the system. FFI has a girl at his work who works for cash and she gets free medical assistance, prescriptions and she gets SSDI. She gets cash and so she never has to claim it on taxes. Totally sucks.