A north Texas couple is considering a divorce to help pay for their daughter's health care costs.Jake and Maria Grey have been married for nine years.Their 6-year-old daughter Brighton has Wolf-Hirschhorn Syndrome, a rare chromosomal disorder that requires full-time care. Developmentally, Brighton is still a baby. She has hearing and vision impairment and seizures."You know when you have a newborn, everything gets really stressful. You really have to adapt to someone needing you 24-7 all the time. We've had a newborn for six and a half years," Maria told WFAA The couple's family said they spend $15,000 a year on her medical expenses and with the father's $40,000 salary, they don't qualify for Medicaid, which has now left their family financially fragile.The couple is making an extreme decision about their marriage to help with all the medical bills."It would just be to get a divorce. It would be to not be together to get our child what we need," Maria said.By divorcing, Maria would become a single, jobless mother of two and would qualify for Medicaid to help with their finances immediately.The couple fears they have no choice."It's morally wrong, I feel like, and I think it's conflicting for me too, because I feel like what's happening to us is morally wrong," Jake said."We promised to each other and to her that we'd do whatever we could do to make her life, however long she's going to be with us, as good as possible," Maria said.
Texas couple considering divorce to help pay for daughter's health care costs
thissaysotherwise on July 11st, 2018 at 17:33 UTC »
My wife and I moved from Michigan to California back in 2004, when she was pregnant and we were doing all the health care stuff. We discovered that the State of California county health department would not recognize our Michigan Marriage license because there was a spot on it for a "State Filing Number" but in Michigan, the state stopped filing them and let the individual counties handle them. But since the spot was still on the form, California the county (health department) saw it as incomplete and not valid.
Anyways, thanks to that bureaucracy, my wife was considered a single mother and low income which qualified for all sorts of health care and food support. At some points it was almost more of a pain, since she had to use the programs offered otherwise we were reported for not properly caring for out child.
EDIT: clarify it was the county health department, not necessarily the entire state government that would not accept our marriage license
GerryOfRavioli on July 11st, 2018 at 14:56 UTC »
single white male 32 years old. had insurance through my job and STILL couldn't afford healthcare cost. my deductible was 3500 and when i got sick in 2016 and had x-rays and an ultrasound i got a bill for 1200 dollars and the medical center was like "the price is the price we don't negotiate" so i mean. i'm not sure what an individual is supposed to do let alone a fucking family
SKRIMP-N-GRITZ on July 11st, 2018 at 14:18 UTC »
Hey we almost did something similar. Our income was just high enough we didn’t qualify for a discount on insurance. If we were unmarried we could make as a couple 50% more as a couple and qualify, but the government assumes that married couples will have one person with health insurance through a job. That’s ridiculous.
I don’t really care if it’s fraud. The profiteering off of healthcare in America is the problem, fuck the healthcare industry.
Edit: I’m aware it’s not fraud. Poor word choice for sure. Not really sure what I was trying to say with that.