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.
assassinkensei on July 11st, 2018 at 18:29 UTC »
My Grandparents has to do this. They got legally divorced because they couldn’t afford heath insurance as a couple anymore. This country is so dumb when it comes to healthcare. They will just follow along with whatever they were thought when they were young. It is frustrating.
These people shouldn’t have to do this. Also why is the poverty line for 1 person $12,140 a year but for 2 people only $16,460? So if one person can’t survive off $12,140 a year how are 2 people going to survive off $8,230 a year each? Our government is stupid.
wakka54 on July 11st, 2018 at 15:45 UTC »
When I was on welfare I specifically got a sheet of paper warning against exactly this, telling the story of them prosecuting for fraud over a divorce to qualify. I think it's all dumb I'm just saying they have their eyes peeled for just this.
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.