NEW YORK, Jan. 6, 2012 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Anderson Cooper's daytime show, ANDERSON, changed the broadcast date of a show about the need for alimony reform in Florida, taped earlier, to Friday January 13, from Monday January 9. For the latest information on the airdate, please check the ANDERSON website or Florida Alimony Reform's website.
ANDERSON is broadcast at different times throughout Florida and the country, beginning at 9AM, and on different networks. Check this site to learn when and where to watch on Friday, January 13, or if the date has been changed again.
Alan Frisher, Florida Alimony Reform's co-director and spokesman, and who appears on the show, urges those interested in Florida's alimony problems to visit the organization's website, Florida Alimony Reform, to read a set of "horror stories" about abuses, and to watch a DVD about a 72-year-old Alzheimer patient, no longer able to bathe himself, who must pay alimony until he dies. Because of technical difficulties, the DVD will be posted later today, January 6.
Frisher notes that recent attention to the issue in the media and the Florida legislature has sparked widespread interest, and that a national media outlet, in addition to ANDERSON, may be reporting on the need for alimony reform in Florida the week of January 9 as well.
Background: With no guidelines in the current law, Florida alimony awards often last until death, and payments can be more than 70 percent of a payer's income. Even people who work full-time and make handsome salaries are sometimes awarded long-term or lifetime alimony. Permanent alimony is awarded to alcoholics, debtors, those with criminal records, and to women who leave their husbands for other men or women lovers and then live with them for years.
Lawmakers in Florida are currently considering bills in the House and Senate (HB 549/SB 748) that would update laws established when divorce was rare and women did not usually work outside the home. While the originally drafted bills may change as they progress from Committee to Committee, Alan Frisher is working to insure that the final bill will include:
- limits on the amount and the length of alimony awards;
- change standards for proving cohabitation, so that alimony recipients who cohabit instead of marrying, for fear of losing the alimony, will have alimony reduced or ended.
- establish the right of payers to retire at Federal retirement age (currently 66 years old) and end payments in most cases. Currently, there is no guaranteed right to retire and see payments lowered or ended.
- excluding income and assets from second wives in alimony modifications. Currently, if an alimony payer remarries, his new spouse's resources can be considered part of the household income from which alimony can be drawn, if the payer has a change in circumstances (illness, retirement, job loss) and needs to adjust payments.
The Florida Alimony Reform logo is available at http://www.globenewswire.com/newsroom/prs/?pkgid=11350