andrewducker: (Default)
andrewducker ([personal profile] andrewducker) wrote2023-08-10 12:00 pm
bens_dad: (Default)

[personal profile] bens_dad 2023-08-13 08:31 am (UTC)(link)
Partly, but more specifically, I am assuming a substantial gender-skew in single-income couples, and suspect that that will create gendered incentives for anyone considering divorcing a terminally-ill spouse.

If you rely on your spouse's health insurance, even if they are sick you may find it too expensive to leave, whereas dropping a sick spouse from your insurance might be personally financially beneficial ?

Thinking further, I realize that I have been assuming that it is the healthy partner initiating divorce.
It could be that being faced with a life-expectancy of months or a few years rather than decades, the sick partner decides that the spouse doesn't fit their new plans for the rest of their life.
However, at least on a partial reading, the paper doesn't say anything to suggest this was true for these patients.