Sarah's earnings and child support from their father simply did not cover everything. Their father was supposed to have put the kids on his employer's health insurance plan... but apparently never did. Medical bills for the children were more than Sarah could pay even over the next several years.
It's a common problem... and one a divorced parent with custody of the children can now avoid. Relatively new laws allow a mom (or a dad if he has custody) to get a wage assignment for medical insurance for the children, and to deal directly with the dad's insurance company (or mom's insurance company if dad has custody).
Typically, the mother gets custody, and the court orders the father to enroll the child in his employer's group health plan. But frequently he fails to do so, or fails to pay the insurance premiums, or never gives the mother information needed to get reimbursed for medical costs, or he gets the reimbursement money himself and pockets it without paying medical bills.
Now, with the proper court order, the custodial parent can enroll the children in the non-custodial parent's health plan herself, and then make claims and get payments directly, all without the approval of the custodial parent.
The key is a new type of court order you can get from the court that handled the divorce or the court you would now go to for a change in child support. It's called a "Qualified Medical Child Support Order," or QMCSO (most lawyers pronounce it "Quamso"), and it lets a custodial parent deal directly with the other spouse's insurance company.
Because the law is fairly new, some lawyers are still unfamiliar with it, and so are some judges, but a QMCSO should be used anytime a child would be better off if put on the health insurance of the non-custodial parent. Some lawyers feel it should be used in every case. Even in a case where the divorce was several years ago, until a child reaches age 18 you can go back to court and get the order to eliminate future problems.
The order will even keep the non-custodial parent's insurance company from refusing to enroll a child because the child is not claimed by the father as a dependent, or was born out of wedlock, or because the insurance company only allows enrollment at certain times. The order also prohibits health care plans from considering whether the child is eligible for Medicaid.
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