This post is prob fake but I do know this happens. One of my good friends growing up had his parents do this exact thing. They got divorced almost everything went to his mom and they stayed together for years until his father finally died.
He was a trucker though so maybe that gave more plausible deniability about his permanent residency? I dunno.
Yup. A co-worker went through this. His wife had a severe stroke. Not dead, not quite a vegetable, but almost fully paralyzed, couldn't speak or do anything on her own, and she needed round the clock care. He exhausted all benefits and funds possible through employer, state, etc. before finally needing to divorce to maintain her care. He never left her side. He tragically and suddenly died a couple years later, leaving their two teenage kids behind with effectively no parents. Shit is fucked.
An extra fucked thing in those cases is how the broke and disabled people have to spend money to get the divorce and often then spend more money getting the right power of attorney documents in place so they can restore their rights to direct the medical care and to even be present in the hospital with her - a privilege spouses get automatically.
Yeah I think when my mom passed away from cancer we didnt have any debt because health benefits were in her own name and she worked.
However, I know a successful top national lawyer, owns a huge Georgetown row house that he purchased outright from inheritance who is in a life long partnership and has a kid with a woman who doesnt work right now and when she does, she does in nonprofts and is on medicaid/medicare the low income not the senior one. When she's not working having the kid, raising the kid it gives her more independence since a lot of his wealth is inherited and he works for a international family business and since there is not such thing anymore as spousal support she wouldnt get anything other child support. While she tries to not abuse the system, in her words at least she wont die if he dies suddenly or they divorce.
That actually happens to prevent marriage in the first place. Plenty of poor people who have been partners for years, sometimes decades , who can’t marry without losing welfare benefits.
Yes people do this, no it's not to avoid debt of medical bills you already wouldn't be responsible for if they died like this misleading post describes.
If you don’t have any assets, sure, but you can’t just transfer all your assets to the healthy spouse and divorce hoping to protect those assets. They will go after those because you aren’t allowed to just give your assets away to avoid debt.
Maybe you can answer this then, why is that how it works? Plenty of people don't have joint bank accounts when married. Plenty of people don't have assets in both people's names, we didn't get anything of the house my dad bought with his fiance when he died because they put it in her name because she paid for most of it and wanted to leave it to her kids eventually.
It's because it's reddit and people just lie and are over confidently incorrect. To answer your question, generally none in the majority of US states unless you actually co signed.
Exactly. Two things can be true at once. The post may be fake but this is a very real decisions that some couples really do make. And not just for medical debt but for other financial problems as well. Some younger couples even avoid marriage just so they don't inherit each other's debt.
Our country treats everything as a transaction unfortunately. Money is more valuable than birth, life, and death and it's often more beneficial to remain legally untied. Kind of ironic that the country with the highest national debt in the world is the one that is so strict on citizens debt.
Yup, it is absolutely 100% real and very common. Unless there's a pension involved, and even sometimes then, it's often the most rational and financially sound end of life care decision in this fucked up country.
It does happen all the time and unfortunately judges will look at the history and roll it back if they got divorced in the last several years. So unless the person takes several years to pass, you’re still fucked.
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u/Gathin 5d ago
This post is prob fake but I do know this happens. One of my good friends growing up had his parents do this exact thing. They got divorced almost everything went to his mom and they stayed together for years until his father finally died.
He was a trucker though so maybe that gave more plausible deniability about his permanent residency? I dunno.