Question Continuing medical bills post Ch 7

[toonces06]

Hello all - we filed a no asset Ch7 in April. 341 meeting in June. Expect to discharge pretty much on schedule.

My question is this: We will have continuing medical bills from a sick child. Has anyone successfully structured their billing with medical services people so as to leave one spouse "clean" and let the other spouse be the responsible party on all of the bills?

My wife and I have discussed letting her be the "fall guy" for the collections that inevitably come with major long-term family medical. Essentially, we'd like the bills to pile on her credit and hopefully mine will stay clear of them and rebuild to good credit.

I'm the only income earner in the family. So the idea is, a few years from now, if I can get my credit score to the upper 600's or lower 700's that would put us in position to buy the few things we'll need to buy on credit - house and possibly a car.

Thougts? Anyone been down this road before? Thanks!!!

[newbie2]

First, I am sorry to hear that you have a sick child. I can't imagine anything more heartbreaking for a parent, my thoughts are with you.

As to your question: You don't mention anything about insurance (if you have insurance, whose policy is it? Yours?) I think it will be very difficult to shelter one of you from the medical billing fallout when you are both legally responsible for your child and your childs needs. Others may chime in, but experience has taught me that if they can't collect from one parent they will go after the other.

Good luck to you, and to your family.

[despritfreya]

Regardless of the "legally responsible" issue raised by nb2 (which sounds spot on - and I too am disheartened to read about your child), I believe Louisiana is a community property state therefore I see no way around "joint" liability.

If you do not have insurance, is there any State program you can qualify for?

Des.

[toonces06]

Thanks for the replies and the concern for our son. It does help.

Yes, we have always maintained private insurance. He also has medicare (for now, thanks to Healthcare reform it starts getting cut in 2012 - we'll see what the cuts turn out to be).

Anyway, even with that, the 'patient responsible' part of his bills will continue to be in the 10's of thousands of dollars per year. We pay as much as we can, we are working on fundraising for some of it and some of it just ends up as collections again.

Yes, Louisiana is a joint property state, so I know the legal distinction of the bill being tied to me remains.

However, that is completely separated from the collections issuance of the bills and how they land on the personal credit reports.

The bill gets issued to either my wife or me. What we can't pay ends up going to collections and dings the credit report only for the person it was originally issued to.

What we're trying to do is get it to where all of the bills are issued to her, thus my credit report stays clear.