Is Divorce for Medicaid Eligibility a Growing Trend?

It's expensive to live with a spinal cord injury, but especially so if you're married. And if you're a quadriplegic who needs home health aides, it can double the cost. On average it costs over $100,000 per year to pay for all of the expenses related to being paralyzed. So what are you to do when you need to be eligible for health insurance, the Holy Grail that pays for everything, but you can't because you're married?

The answer is simple: Divorce, or to be technically accurate, a "Medical/Medicaid Divorce" (depending on the lawyer you ask). A couple, despite being happy, gets a divorce "on paper" so that one of the people in the marriage, or one of their kids, can become eligible for Medicaid. In cases of a sudden illness/disability in the family, an accident or simply old age, couples are turning to a Medicaid divorce as an option.

After the divorce, the person who doesn’t need the health insurance typically gets the house and other assets transferred to their name. But make sure to check with your individual state to see the asset rules regarding Medicaid and marriage before doing so. In some states, only your income is counted, not your assets. A couple can make, together, a little over $111,000 before the couple is ineligible for Medicaid.

Medicaid divorces are slowly becoming a trend as a response to changes to Medicaid regulations in recent years, notably the Affordable Care Act. In many states, if you continue to live together after a divorce and share assets, the state may investigate to see if the “divorce” is real, and not attempted fraud. This article has been written for informational purposes only and should not be relied on as legal advice. You should consult an attorney who is knowledgeable in the area of Medicaid law, as well as an estate planner and a divorce lawyer if you're considering this.

A couple considering a Medicaid divorce was recently featured in People Magazine. Jake and Maria Grey of Sanger, Texas have a daughter with a severe disability called Wolf-Hirschhorn Syndrome that requires around-the-clock care. With her husband's income, it prices them out of Medicaid eligibility for their daughter. They’ve tried to pay for all of her medical expenses out of pocket but even now it's starting to make them bankrupt, which is why they are in the news for considering a divorce despite being a “perfectly happy couple.”

Once she becomes divorced in the state of Texas and is considered a "single mother," she will become eligible for everything. There really is no comparison. Once divorced, the couple will be able to pay all their bills, as well as have enough money for their other children. The Grey family from Texas is not alone. 

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Another couple in West Virginia four years ago ran into the same issue, but the husband has an SCI. Although they do want to stay anonymous, they received advice from local government agencies that a divorce would be the best legal option for them since they were drowning in debt and not even able to afford food some months. Getting a divorce, yet staying living together, is exactly what they did.

Remember, a divorce doesn’t have to mean the end to an epic union or the end of your relationship for that matter. It’s just a rescinding of a piece of paper in the case of a Medicaid Divorce, and doing so may allow your union to flow even better. If you or someone you know is faced with making a decision like this or has been in the past, please share your story with others in the comments below.