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Divorce financial planners suggest that the divorce rate may increase after the integration of the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) into the public routine. They write that a significant number of couples have remained together but essentially separated because they find a divorce to be expensive given the excessive cost of healthcare insurance. When there is a job loss or a separation the spouse may have the COBRA choice available but that option is far too expensive for many couples. As a result, they’ve remained married. This dynamic appears fairly uniform throughout the country, including in Michigan, so that we may in fact see an increase in divorce filings in the near future.
According to the financial planners who were interviewed for an article in “Financial Planning” they’ve all personally seen couples literally deciding to put off a divorce due to healthcare costs. That factor was exacerbated in recent years where the parting spouse may have found it virtually impossible to get a new loan to purchase a home. Some initial reports indicate that single people may in fact be able to save thousands each year under the healthcare insurance exchanges where they can pick and choose from a multitude of insurance offerings.
Many planners reported having clients who remained married for up to 10 years or more just to keep better health insurance for a spouse. A husband with superior health insurance due to being in the movie industry in California has remained married for the past 10 years because his wife believes that she cannot get anything comparable on her own. But the experts believe that this kind of reasoning will be less of a factor with Obamacare.
In Michigan and throughout the country, the healthcare insurance exchanges have opened for people to browse and determine what they may be able to afford. In some states and in some locales, there may be over a hundred different insurance sources competing to give quotes on the exchanges. It will be interesting to see whether the divorce rate starts to increase at some point after the new law gets integrated.
Source: Financial Planning, Divorce Wave to Follow Obamacare Rollout?, Janice Fioravante, Sept. 30, 2013