Health insurance and child support

[IceMountain]

I am required to have health insurance coverage for my son through my child support order.  My job does not offer health insurance until I have been employed full time for a year, which is not until September.  My wife carries the health insurance for both of us and my son.  The coverage for all three of us costs about $350 a month for health and dental, which is deducted from my wife's paycheck.

My son is in Iowa.  The insurance through my wife's employer will only cover him for emergency or urgent care while he is at his mom's house, however, it will cover prescriptions at major chains in his area.  The dental insurance is usable, but my ex does not use it.

Will I be able to deduct my son's portion of the health insurance coverage paid through my wife's employer?  

Family coverage is the same price for a spouse as it is for spouse and children, will this matter?  (in other words we pay the same for coverage for all three of us as we would if it was just her and I)

Can csru force me to take out insurance from my employer when I am eligible in September?  

Thank You

[Ref]

and this is with Florida law, you can deduct this from your child support. This is how you do it. You take the cost of healthcare and divide it by the number of people covered. You can deduct the part that covers your child only. If there are 3 people covered and one is your child, then you can deduct 1/3. Get it?

You may want to post the wording in your divorce papers. In general, I can't imagine why a judge would force you to do anything but make sure your child is covered, whether it is by your wife or you.

They might make you take out insurance if it is more usable to your child for daily issues.

Good Luck
Ref

[ocean]

I am not sure if I am reading this right....Your wife has you all covered now but son is out of state? What about a regular dr appointment for shots or a sick visit? If not, then I think you would have to pick up the insurance. In my state you pay childsupport and a pro-rated share of health costs....The parent that can supply the most coverage has to and then you split any out -of -pocket expenses including the cost out of the paycheck. So for me, I have the health coverage and it costs me XX month. Father pays half of the kids cost plus child support....(and then half of copays at the dr.)....Does the BM work? and is it offered to her? Also, if you supply her with the dental cards and tell her where local drs are you should not be held responsible if she goes outside of network....Good luck!

[awakenlynn]

It sounds as bad as ours!  We live in Iowa and qualify for hawk-i, the state insurance for our children, but it does not cover SD who lives out of state, so my husband has to keep full insurance on everyone.  We can't split it for just one child.  We also have dental.  Our dental carrier is the same as ex's dental carrier, but different plans.  Ours covers orthodoctics(we think) 100%, while her plan does not.

Ex signed a stipulation that states that we do not need to cover SD on our insurance because ex's husband has tri-care(military), but they don't cover it in our state because we are in a different region.

We are lucky that we do continue coverage, becasue SDU still requires that we have it.

So ex refuses to send medical card or SD ID card with her in case she goes to the doctor here, she refuses to transfer the tri-care to this region when SD is here(all it is, is a small form and a fax--we have done it a couple times when my DH was in military).  It's not hard to do, it just isn;t convenient for her.  She wants us to call all the medical stuff in, even though she won't do it for us.  We have told her if she doesn't send in the information that is needed, she can cover the co-pay and I will send her the bill.

[MixedBag]

I suggest you search Soc's page for his previous answers on this subject.

You can't just deduct anything -- without going back to court.

What the court will do is so different around the country, your bestest bet is to call DHR or CSE in your area and to see what they have normally experienced.

I have one divorce where no adjustments have been made.

I have a second divorce where they did what Ref described.

DH has a third divorce where again, NO adjustments were made.

Can they force you?  That's the one that was answered by Soc....and IF I remember correctly, the answer was close to "if you're providing insurance, then the intent of the order has been met"

NOW you say that wife's insurance doesn't cover much -- question becomes what out of pocket expenses are you expected to pay and which policy covers the most out of pocket expenses?

combine that analysis with the cost of the insurance itself and then come up with the best answer for your family.

The fact that the EX doesn't use what's available to her is HER problem.  I suggest you stand your ground and don't reimburse the other parent until all available coverage has been used.  A few years ago, DH's EX did not use participating providers and DH's judge said then she can foot the bill.  My EX refuses to provide the EOBs for son's counselor.  So counselor said she would stand behind me IF the EX ever tried saying anything about.  He pays a co-pay and if he would give me the EOB, my insurance would pick up the rest.   BUT he refuses to let it be filed with my insurance, so he can pay the tab.

[IceMountain]

I have never had to pay any out of pocket expenses because my son has title 19 insurance in addition to what I provide (or my wife).

I am not offered health insurance through my employer, so it is not an option for me.  The COBRA coverage from my last job would have cost $800 a month and I couldn't afford that so my wife put us on her insurance.

In Iowa, when you are doing a modification review, you can receive a deduction on your child support worksheet for the health insurance you pay for the child.  I was just wondering if I would be allowed this deduction on the worksheet that determines the child support amount, even though it is paid through my wife's employer.

[Genie]

insurance is insurance no matter who has the family covered.  My ex's first wife used to try to say he wasn't providing insurance for the SKs b/c they were under my plan. Give me break.  It was cheaper for me to cover them and the coverage was better. Judge didn't buy it and really didn't want to hear her "complaints" on this issue.

Now the issue is that the child doesn't have regular medical coverage. That may look bad for you.  But I would say right now, you can deduct the portion of the coverage that is for your child.  When I was divorcing, my attorney asked me how much of the insurance was for the children and then 1/2 of that amount was added onto his CS (since he doesn't have any coverage at all). He lucked out b/c most times in IL, the Dad gets to provide the coverage 100%.

So unless otherwise stated, I would deduct it for the CS calculations.

[awakenlynn]

Our case is in IL, and DH was ordered to cover medical insurance.  No big deal.  
Ex now doesn't want us to carry medical because she has military insurance and they cover 100%(she just won't give us the necessary information needed to use it in IA and she lives in TX)

When child support is determined though, the judge took the insurance into account when deciding support amount.  Our order states that if the insurance goes over a certain amount a month then the support drops to half of what we pay now.  Cool!  It probably won't get to that point, but I like that it is in there.