Spouse has cancer. Divorce?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Ill spouse qualifies for medicaid after 50% of the couple's assets are spent for their care. No need to divorce. If 505 left for you isn't enough for you, that's being kind of awful.

Not exactly.

If you are married, basically all the assets of the couple are counted (except the home) and then the well spouse is allowed to keep half of the assets up to $137,000.


If the couple's assets are $100,000, the well spouse can keep half that, or $50,000.

If the couple's assets are $200,000 the well spouse can keep half that or $100,000.

If the couple's assets are $300,000, the well spouse can not keep half that. Half that would be $150,000 which is over the $137,000 asset limit. The well spouse can only keep $137,000.

If the couple's assets are $1,000,000, the community spouse can keep $137,000 of that. The rest needs to be spent on medical care, home health etc. Then the ill spouse can qualify for Medicaid.

[Anonymous]

This is sort of ridiculous. If you have a million dollars and a young family, wouldn’t you have both life and health insurance? Not to mention disability insurance. Why would you need Medicaid in this scenario?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I always hear stories of people getting cancer and going bankrupt even with insurance. How is this possible with out of pocket maximums? Unless you need a full time caretaker or an experimental treatment, won’t 99% of insured patients just hit their max each year? What am I missing?

It's usually loss of income.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is sort of ridiculous. If you have a million dollars and a young family, wouldn’t you have both life and health insurance? Not to mention disability insurance. Why would you need Medicaid in this scenario?

Of the things you just listed (life insurance, health insurance, disability insurance) which one do you think covers long term care in a skilled nursing facility?

[Anonymous]

or the cost of a home health aide?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I always hear stories of people getting cancer and going bankrupt even with insurance. How is this possible with out of pocket maximums? Unless you need a full time caretaker or an experimental treatment, won’t 99% of insured patients just hit their max each year? What am I missing?

My husband died from cancer after several treatments. He even spent weeks in a hospital. We didn’t pay much at all since he had insurance. Divorce is crazy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I always hear stories of people getting cancer and going bankrupt even with insurance. How is this possible with out of pocket maximums? Unless you need a full time caretaker or an experimental treatment, won’t 99% of insured patients just hit their max each year? What am I missing?

You aren’t missing anything. Of course some people can’t afford to pay their max each year or demand some kind of treatment that is not covered. When you dig in, there is always some reason beyond “cancer bankrupted me.” Even if we had to pay the OOP max for both in-network and our-of-network treatment each year, it still would not bankrupt us. I think the other issue is if the sick spouse can’t work and the other spouse isn’t employed or makes too little.

NP. I’m a sahm and before that I was a teacher making 40,000 a year. If my spouse wasn’t able to work due to illness, we’d lose our health insurance and even though I’d of course get a job as quickly as possible we may definitely be in serious financial trouble.

No, you would not lose your health insurance unless he is terminated, and then Cobra kicks in.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:or the cost of a home health aide?

Disability insurance provides cash which you can spend on long term care. Many life insurance policies permit acceleration of the death benefit in the case of terminal or chronic illness, which you can spend on long term care. Some life insurance policies have long term care benefits. Plus there’s that million dollars. Why would you need Medicaid?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:or the cost of a home health aide?

Disability insurance provides cash which you can spend on long term care. Many life insurance policies permit acceleration of the death benefit in the case of terminal or chronic illness, which you can spend on long term care. Some life insurance policies have long term care benefits. Plus there’s that million dollars. Why would you need Medicaid?

I am in this situation - disabled spouse, kids, working spouse.

Disability insurance provides income replacement, which a family with kids still needs.
It's 30% of my spouses former salary. We use that money to pay our bills.
My income as well of course, but I never earned as much as he did before he got ill.
Our income also pays for home health aides for him, about $40,000 a year.
As long as he doesn't need full time care, we should be OK paying it out of my salary and his disability payments.

But there's no more savings ability anymore. We're just barely covering our bills as it is.

If he starts needing 24-7 care (that happens with dementia or motor neuron disease) and either needs full time aides, or a nursing home, that's where the costs really skyrocket. It would be about $120,000 a year or so and that's when you start to wipe our that $1 million retirement savings, that is supposed to be MY retirement, too. It wasn't just for one of us.

Many people who need long term care or a home health aide full time just need it for a few months to a year, but when they live longer but still need a lot of care, that's when they start to burn up the assets that were supposed to provide for both partners in their older years.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I always hear stories of people getting cancer and going bankrupt even with insurance. How is this possible with out of pocket maximums? Unless you need a full time caretaker or an experimental treatment, won’t 99% of insured patients just hit their max each year? What am I missing?

You aren’t missing anything. Of course some people can’t afford to pay their max each year or demand some kind of treatment that is not covered. When you dig in, there is always some reason beyond “cancer bankrupted me.” Even if we had to pay the OOP max for both in-network and our-of-network treatment each year, it still would not bankrupt us. I think the other issue is if the sick spouse can’t work and the other spouse isn’t employed or makes too little.

NP. I’m a sahm and before that I was a teacher making 40,000 a year. If my spouse wasn’t able to work due to illness, we’d lose our health insurance and even though I’d of course get a job as quickly as possible we may definitely be in serious financial trouble.

No, you would not lose your health insurance unless he is terminated, and then Cobra kicks in.

You know Cobra is really expensive, though, right? If he's not working or fired, and she's not employed, how are they going to pay the skyrocking premiums?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I always hear stories of people getting cancer and going bankrupt even with insurance. How is this possible with out of pocket maximums? Unless you need a full time caretaker or an experimental treatment, won’t 99% of insured patients just hit their max each year? What am I missing?

My husband died from cancer after several treatments. He even spent weeks in a hospital. We didn’t pay much at all since he had insurance. Divorce is crazy.

It's usually not the cost of the health care that drives the expense. It is the cost of living long term with no way to take care of your daily activities of living.

If you can't get up from bed and to the bathroom to pee in the middle of the night by yourself;
If you can't shower or bathe or dress yourself;
If you can't get your own food, or even feed yourself;
If you can't make decisions for yourself and need memory care

these are the situations where the cost of care can wipe out a family's life savings.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I always hear stories of people getting cancer and going bankrupt even with insurance. How is this possible with out of pocket maximums? Unless you need a full time caretaker or an experimental treatment, won’t 99% of insured patients just hit their max each year? What am I missing?

You aren’t missing anything. Of course some people can’t afford to pay their max each year or demand some kind of treatment that is not covered. When you dig in, there is always some reason beyond “cancer bankrupted me.” Even if we had to pay the OOP max for both in-network and our-of-network treatment each year, it still would not bankrupt us. I think the other issue is if the sick spouse can’t work and the other spouse isn’t employed or makes too little.

NP. I’m a sahm and before that I was a teacher making 40,000 a year. If my spouse wasn’t able to work due to illness, we’d lose our health insurance and even though I’d of course get a job as quickly as possible we may definitely be in serious financial trouble.

No, you would not lose your health insurance unless he is terminated, and then Cobra kicks in.

You know Cobra is really expensive, though, right? If he's not working or fired, and she's not employed, how are they going to pay the skyrocking premiums?

I’m a different PP. The initial loss of job is a qualifying event for the health exchange. And low income houses (which pp would then be) qualify for large subsidies.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I always hear stories of people getting cancer and going bankrupt even with insurance. How is this possible with out of pocket maximums? Unless you need a full time caretaker or an experimental treatment, won’t 99% of insured patients just hit their max each year? What am I missing?

My husband died from cancer after several treatments. He even spent weeks in a hospital. We didn’t pay much at all since he had insurance. Divorce is crazy.

It's usually not the cost of the health care that drives the expense. It is the cost of living long term with no way to take care of your daily activities of living.

If you can't get up from bed and to the bathroom to pee in the middle of the night by yourself;
If you can't shower or bathe or dress yourself;
If you can't get your own food, or even feed yourself;
If you can't make decisions for yourself and need memory care

these are the situations where the cost of care can wipe out a family's life savings.

This. My mom has Parkinson’s. It will wipe out everything. My mom is already at this stage. She is only 69. My dad is doing everything but he is not in good health. The day will come when the expense will exceed all funds.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ill spouse qualifies for medicaid after 50% of the couple's assets are spent for their care. No need to divorce. If 505 left for you isn't enough for you, that's being kind of awful.

So, you want OP (presumably the wife, who will left alone to take care of the innocent child / children), to just needlessly piss-away 50 % of the “couples assets” (maybe including 50% of the 529 for the kids college) and only then apply for Medicaid ?

How does that make any sense for her?

If I had a cancer diagnosis right now, I’d immediately begin to think only about what’s financially best for my wife and kids after I’m gone. If that means divorce, then of course I’d do that for my family. It is their best interest that matters most.

First, one solution here is to get cancer insurance or critical insurance, to pay any bills the health insurance doesn’t pay.

Second, the practical problem with just going on Medicaid intentionally is that, if the former spouse is trying to cart you around to appointments and visit you, life might be hard, because you’ll be stuck going to random places at the most inconvenient possible hours. Consumer Reports types used to very hostile toward critical insurance, but it prevents this sort of annoyance.

Another idea is to have enough life insurance that you can afford to pull out some of the befits early if you become terminally ill that won’t work if you’re underinsured, but it’s rest if you can use some cash while alive and still leave a decent amount of benefits for the spouse.

[Anonymous]

That post makes no sense. Does the person not have health insurance? Paying for crappy experimental treatments?