Diversion Of Child Support

[dsgarrett]

My question involves child support in the State of: a mother living in Oregon and father living in Colorado.

This involves a mother who has custody of a 17 year old. There are unpaid co-payments on medical bills going back to 2006. The father provided the insurance for the son. The service providers are now seeking payments from the father since the mother won't pay. Is it true that he is responsible if he provided the insurance coverage?

Can the father send them money that he normally would have sent the ex-wife for child support? Some of the bills are about to be sent to collections.

Thank you.

[CourtClerk]

If the order specifies that the money needs to be paid to the money, then it needs to be paid to the mother. Father has no right to change the court order and send the money to where he feels lke it needs to go.

Yes, he is responsible for the medical bills, since the medical insurance company is not a party to the court order. They don't care where the money comes from, it needs to go to them because it is owed to them and mom and dad can argue about it later.

Dad could have taken measures to have the court order her to pay it. Has he filed for contempt? Probably not. There is no mention as to when dad submitted the bills to mom. There is no mention as to when dad asked for mom to pay the bills. There is no mention as to what dad has done in the last 2 years to ensure the bills were being paid - which is why it is hard to hear stories from uninvolved third parties. Please put dad on the line...

[mldixon]

Dear CourtClerk,

Thank you for answering my girlfriend's question about medical bills and child support.

We need to get a copy of the original divorce papers and see what was down on paper about child support. I have always just paid her and we settled matters about other issues as they came up. These new unpaid medical bills came out of the blue. My ex-wife never let me know she was having problems and the money was owed. I found this out by getting a call from one of the service providers asking for the money.

I will send her the money for child support as usual.

I have another question. I have just lost my job and the insurance coverage for my son is no longer available. My ex-wife has not yet put our son on her insurance. She has not been a responsible person in the past and I am worried that she will fail to do this but take our son for services anyway. As the father am I financially liable for medical bills for my son if they were obtained without coverage by his mother? He will be 18 this August. How long are parents responsible?

Thank you very much.

[Xena]

I have another question. I have just lost my job and the insurance coverage for my son is no longer available. My ex-wife has not yet put our son on her insurance. She has not been a responsible person in the past and I am worried that she will fail to do this but take our son for services anyway. As the father am I financially liable for medical bills for my son if they were obtained without coverage by his mother? He will be 18 this August. How long are parents responsible?

Thank you very much.

Are you court ordered to provide medical coverage?
If you are, you should look into keeping coverage for your soon under COBRA. It is alot more expensive, but it is a way to obey the court order.

[Exhausted]

There are insurance policies that are less expensive than Cobra.

I don't know if it is available in your state, but Kaiser is reasonable and a decent policy.

You need to pull out copies of the order when it was made to make sure you are or are not responsible for medical coverage. As far as how long it lasts, again, you need to read the papers--no one here can answer that for you.