I live in Washington state. This is a question about medical debt.
My girlfriend, soon-to-be fiancee, has stage 5 kidney disease, aka kidney failure. Her kidneys operate at 2% of normal function. She was hospitalized for a month and now needs daily dialysis treatment and will eventually receive a kidney transplant. This was a shock to the both of us (we're both young) and a very recent development, so there's a very real chance that I misrepresent some of the information. I'm mostly going by what I've been told by the revolving door of doctors and social workers who have seen us.
She had no medical insurance prior to the hospitalization, and no life insurance. She also can't work, due to her condition. However, since we live in Washington, and since kidney failure is considered end-of-life care, upon hospitalization she was immediately enrolled in Medicare and Medicaid (Apple Health). This means she has free healthcare, according to her social workers. She indeed owes no medical debt. Her hospitalization, medical equipment (literal truckloads of it), routine doctor visits, prescription medicine -- all free of charge to us. Truly a blessing.
Here's the meat of the issue. If I understand the situation, if we were to get married in the state of Washington, the insurance people would look at our joint income. My salary right now is about $70,000, or over $4,000 per month, which I believe is over the limit for what we can earn to qualify for Medicaid full coverage. The way I see it, marriage could be a catastrophic financial decision, because suddenly we'd be on the hook (at least partially) for all future bills. I can't understate how much medical attention she's receiving. In equipment alone, she's going through 40 milk crate sized boxes of medical supplies a month.
I really want to marry this woman, and no matter what happens, I'm going to engage her. She's very understanding that the engagement might take years as we navigate the bureaucratic spiderweb of healthcare. I want to know, apart from moving to another country with free healthcare (we're fine with moving states), is there any way we can get married such that she continues to keep her coverage? I'm not meaning to make it all about money of course, I'm just fearful of the prospect of vast amounts of medical debt.
You might suggest, "wait until she gets a transplant, then marry" but it isn't so simple. Donated kidneys last 10-12 years on average. So it's a guarantee she'll need multiple throughout her life, assuming she survives that long. If we marry and then she requires another transplant, we might be setting ourselves up for future debt.
I don't have much detailed financial information to share. Times are tough enough with one income earner in a HCOL area (Seattle). Any price increase would be unaffordable for us at the present time. If this information is absolutely required, I can make another post at a future date.
Also, I might be slow to respond. She wants to watch a movie, and I rarely say no to her these days. But I promise I'll eventually answer all questions to my best ability.
Thanks in advance r/personalfinance.
Submitted August 25, 2022 at 09:23PM by Hyd3w https://ift.tt/PrltAzJ
