Will a public health care option help save marriage?
An except from an interesting op-ed:
My friend M. — you’ll understand in a moment why she’s terrified of my using her name — had to make a searing decision a year ago. She was married to a sweet, gentle man whom she loved, but who had become increasingly absent-minded. Finally, he was diagnosed with early-onset dementia.
The disease is degenerative, and he will become steadily less able to care for himself. At some point, as his medical needs multiply, he will probably need to be institutionalized.
The hospital arranged a conference call with a social worker, who outlined how the dementia and its financial toll on the family would progress, and then added, out of the blue: “Maybe you should divorce.”
“I was blown away,” M. told me. But, she said, the hospital staff members explained that they had seen it all before, many times. If M.’s husband required long-term care, the costs would be catastrophic even for a middle-class family with savings.
Eventually, after the expenses whittled away their combined assets, her husband could go on Medicaid — but by then their children’s nest egg would be gone, along with her 401(k) plan. She would face a bleak retirement with neither her husband nor her savings.
(Yes, I recognize that it is NYTimes and some people take exception).
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/30/opinion/30kristof.html?_r=1
Tags: 401 k, assets, blown away, Catastrophic, conference call, dementia, divorce, early onset dementia, gentle man, Health Care Option, Health Help, Help Marriage, hospital staff members, long term care, marriage, medicaid, middle class family, nest egg, nytimes, out of the blue, Public Health Care, retirement, social worker
Unfortunately, its nothing I havent heard of before. People marry for tax reasons, divorce for medical/financial reasons, stay togther but never marry because they would lose benefits….on and on.
Happens more often than you think…spouses, children, etc. Many of them victims of Big Pharma and the FDA approving medication that is dangerous. Then, when something happens, you’re on your own. If you ask for any help, you’re "lazy" "trash" or "welfare seeking."
Excellent article, and I think that public health care will help take the pressure off of a lot of families. Stress is the #1 cause of illness and disease.
We need health insurance reform.
But, it’s not a panacea. All the problems of the world will not be solved by passing health insurance reform.
Things can have unintended consequences.
Right now, the same thing happens to old people when they have to go into a care home. They have to liquidate assets and give them to the govt in return for Medicare footing the bill for the care home.
I don’t know that all these people should divorce to protect their assets. They should have some responsibility to pay for their own care. But I also understand that medical care shouldn’t bankrupt you and suck up all your assets.
It is a very complicated thing. I don’t know that the reform bill covers this.
Dementia is pretty brutal
It’s so foolish that the US doesn’t have working health care so that illegal immigrants who get their fingers cut off in a machine picking cheap vegetables can’t get a "free ride" on the US dime.
The US is so screwed up.
At this point, the plan is to keep Medicaid and this is what is used for long term care for dementia. It wouldn’t make any difference in this case to have a public option.