In order to qualify for aid under Medicaid, a patient must be impoverished. With nursing home care costing between $5,000-$12,000 per month, the family's assets need to be depleted in order to get Medicaid assistance. Meanwhile, the healthy spouse is left without the income to pay for survival.

Jan Warner and Jan Collins wrote recently about an incapacitated woman who resides in a nursing home at $7,000 per month. She'd been the bread winner and had — in her name alone — the marital home, $100,000 in savings and $230,000 in an IRA. The husband could not access his wife's accounts to pay her or his living expenses.

Although this is a forty-four-year marriage, two of their estranged children objected to the use of their mother's assets. The husband brought guardianship actions in the Probate Court, which allowed him to live in the marital home. The husband's meager social security, though, was not sufficient to keep up the house expenses.

I don't understand why the family home was in the wife's name alone. There are other facts about this family situation that remain unknown. Why do estranged adult children interdict themselves so their father is denied living funds?

In most cases seniors have to spend down their assets for nursing home aid. Seniors are now divorcing so both parties do not become destitute where one spouses is in a nursing home. The 2006 Federal rules place additional restriction on the amount of family resources before Medicaid kicks in. These draconian rules impact negatively on middle-class families that have a home and savings.

Even more worrisome is that by divorcing, the healthy partner no longer has decision-making authority over his or her partner. In a case like the Collins', this could open the door for estranged children to make healthcare decisions that are not in line with either parent's wishes.

It is a sad commentary that some elderly couples are forced to resort to divorce in order to survive, financially, and continue their lives.