Would you get married to someone specifically so that you could get health insurance? Many Americans are completely without any form of health insurance right now. Health insurance is too expensive for most people to be able to afford, unless it comes from their employer. For some people, getting married to someone who already has health insurance seems like a wise idea.
It is, undoubtedly, a controversial decision. In our society, people are supposed to get married because they love each other. We frown upon people getting married for status, or “for the money”, (although that doesn’t actually stop people from getting married for those exact reasons).
The same stigma doesn’t appear to be placed on people who consider getting married “for the insurance”. Perhaps this is because so many of us are only one medical emergency away from having to file for bankruptcy.
Have you heard the phrase “marrying for the insurance card?” The implication is that doing so is similar to the practice of some illegal immigrants, who marry a person who is an American citizen specifically so that they, too, can become a legal citizen of the United States. In some cases, those who marry for the green card are marrying people whom they are friends with, acquaintances of, or even complete strangers to. It is completely a means to an end, and often not what most of us would consider to be a real marriage.
This is different from what is going on with people who marry for the insurance card. Those marriages are usually between two people who have been in a serious relationship with each other for quite some time. The couple wasn’t really ready to “tie the knot” just yet, but, since the uninsured person has a serious illness, or a chronic condition, it eventually seems like it would be a whole lot less stressful if they just got married, and got that person onto an insurance plan that would prevent their medical bills from continuing to skyrocket.
The television show “Gray’s Anatomy” recently did an episode where two of the characters decided to get married, in large part because one of them desperately needed health insurance, and the other person had it. The episode touches on a problem that could happen in this situation. Your spouse becomes critically ill, you are now the legal next of kin, and have no idea if your spouse would want you to “pull the plug” under those circumstances.
There are other problems that come with getting married for the health insurance. Obviously, it’s not very romantic to look back, years later, and recall that the way your spouse proposed was by telling you that he was sick, and needed to find a way to be added to your health insurance. I don’t think anyone imagines this scenario as the ideal way they would like to be proposed to. It’s easy to see where this can lead to a strained marriage, and how resentment can grow (especially if bills are growing at the same time). Yes, you would have health insurance, but the cost might be the quality of your relationship.
Another thing to realize is that it takes time to get added to your spouse’s health insurance. You may have to wait until the next enrollment period before changes can be made. This could take a year. In the meantime, you would be married, but without health insurance anyway. This isn’t a quick fix to your health care problems.
Image by David Goehring on Flickr