"WHEN Colin Sandler was in high school in the mid-1980s, her grandparents legally separated after 45 years of marriage. This was not because their marriage was troubled, but because her grandfather had fallen ill and medical bills threatened to consume their entire life savings and all their income, leaving Ms. Sandler’s grandmother penniless."

"The separation, as Ms. Sandler recalls it, allowed her grandfather to qualify for Medicaid and her grandmother to stay solvent. Ms. Sandler, now an elder care consultant in Cortland Manor, N.Y., says that in those years divorcing was a mainstream financial planning move. Tactics to keep elderly people’s assets and income within their family’s control while still qualifying them for Medicaid were common. Loopholes were exploited."