I told my wife that she can divorce me when I get dementia. She can have the government foot my nursing home bill since I'm not going to get any social security in 2044
excerpt from article below:
Christine Crawford of Aurora, Ohio, started divorce proceedings after her husband's care for dementia consumed more than $100,000 of their savings.
Crawford said she didn't want to divorce her husband, with whom she'd raised three children, but it was the only way to preserve what was left of their life savings.
"All along I kept saying, 'Absolutely not. I won't do that,'" said Crawford, whose husband died before the divorce was final. "I was so proud of the fact we'd been married for 42 years."
To understand why Crawford faced such a wrenching decision, you need to understand some background:
* Medicare, the government insurance program for people 65 and over, doesn't cover long nursing-home stays.
* But Medicaid, the federal health program for the poor that does cover such care, generally requires people to exhaust their financial resources before they can qualify for help.
When one spouse gets sick, many married couples face the uncomfortable prospect of having to "spend down" most of their assets to qualify for Medicaid, leaving little for the healthy spouse to live on.
http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Col...rceGrandpa.aspx
excerpt from article below:
Christine Crawford of Aurora, Ohio, started divorce proceedings after her husband's care for dementia consumed more than $100,000 of their savings.
Crawford said she didn't want to divorce her husband, with whom she'd raised three children, but it was the only way to preserve what was left of their life savings.
"All along I kept saying, 'Absolutely not. I won't do that,'" said Crawford, whose husband died before the divorce was final. "I was so proud of the fact we'd been married for 42 years."
To understand why Crawford faced such a wrenching decision, you need to understand some background:
* Medicare, the government insurance program for people 65 and over, doesn't cover long nursing-home stays.
* But Medicaid, the federal health program for the poor that does cover such care, generally requires people to exhaust their financial resources before they can qualify for help.
When one spouse gets sick, many married couples face the uncomfortable prospect of having to "spend down" most of their assets to qualify for Medicaid, leaving little for the healthy spouse to live on.
http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Col...rceGrandpa.aspx