Until illness do us part: Some parents weigh divorce to provide care for kids

Three-year-old Annalynne Magallon has cerebral palsy, but her family is ineligible for Medicaid to help pay for her care because her father earns too much at the Fort Worth Police Department.

"He's putting criminals away who are getting Medicaid and federal benefits that we can't get," said Brandon Magallon's wife, Jayme.

They're among couples in North Texas who said they have been pushed to consider divorce as a way to provide long-term care for disabled and ill children.

Jayme Magallon knows what benefits would be available to her if she were a single mother, so she and her husband discussed divorcing to qualify for coverage that would pay for Annalynne's equipment.

They decided against splitting up. Now Jayme Magallon just tries to ignore the bruises she gets every time she lifts Annalynne's heavy wheelchair.

Working families with disabled children can get help from the Medicaid buy-in program, but they can't qualify for it if they earn more than 150 percent of the federal poverty level.

"There are a lot of families who find themselves in situations like this where they either have to get rid of assets or leave jobs," said Hannah Mehta, executive director of Protect TX Fragile Kids. "Unless they've ever been exposed to this world, it's not something most people even consider."

In Texas, couples can divorce by testifying their marriages are "insupportable because of discord or conflict of personalities between the spouses that destroys the legitimate ends of the marriage relationship and prevents any reasonable expectation of reconciliation."

Filing for divorce costs about $300, doesn't require a spouse to change addresses and can be completed without an attorney's help.

Misrepresenting the grounds for divorce under oath could expose a couple to charges of perjury, family law attorney Adam Seidel said.

But the Texas attorney general's office has no record of prosecuting such cases. "As a practical matter, bringing a criminal prosecution like that would be difficult at best," Seidel said. "But that should put the lawyer in an ethical dilemma."

Jake and Maria Grey of Sanger publicly announced they were considering divorce after nine years of marriage so their 6-year-old daughter can qualify for Medicaid.

Although friends and caseworkers recommend divorce, the couple haven't filed for legal separation yet. "Everybody always says the same thing, that that's the easiest solution," she said. "I don't feel it's fraud in any way, because people get divorced all the time. The point was never to cheat or scam anybody."

Instead of leaving each other, Michelle Bartlett and her husband decided to move to Arizona, where they could get better access to benefits for her son, Jake, who also has Wolf-Hirschhorn syndrome.

"No one will tell you that on the record, but most case managers, anybody that works in the nonprofit sector, they'll tell you [divorce is] the best option," she said.

Now that they've moved, her husband has returned to the military as a contractor for financial reasons. That requires him to be deployed almost half of every year, but the sacrifice is worth it, Bartlett said. Arizona has provided their son with devices that allow him to walk and communicate for the first time.

"I had to wait until he was 16 years old to see his personality," she said.