Avoiding Medi-Cal eligibility for children under ACA?

[skyline]

Help! I've spent a fair bit of time trying to figure out how to stay above the MAGI threshold to prevent my kid from qualifying for Medi-Cal, but can't seem to be able to find any concrete rules around how this will work...

I've played around with income levels on coveredca.com's calculator, so I have an idea on the dollar amount that will qualify children for Medi-Cal, but what I can't seem to be able to find is the exact rule. If it's percentage based, it seems to be around 266% of poverty level, but I was hoping to find the rule spelled out so I can confirm that it's not based on any other factors...

On a related note, does anyone else here think it's crazy that ACA is significantly complicating insurance for low-income families by putting adults on a private policy and children in Medi-Cal?

Thanks in advance to anyone that might know what's going on here!

 

[skyline]

As a follow-up note - in case anyone is wondering why I'm trying to do this: I'm trying to maximize my ACA subsidies w/o losing subsidies to cover my child. Although your income of between 134%-400% MAGI qualifies you for subsidies, you only receive subsidies based on the cost to insure the whole family if your children do not qualify for Medi-Cal. If you have kids that qualify for Medi-Cal, the subsidy gets calculated based on insuring only the adults. At the end of the day it's not a big difference, but like the 400% MAGI cliff, the Medi-Cal eligibility cliff is worth avoiding if you can.

 

[NW-Reader]

tinlizzy posted a link to a good chart on another thread:

Medicaid and CHIP Eligibility Levels | Medicaid.gov

We are trying to do the same thing here in WA, just to have more choice in providers. Our son is 16, though, and we might just let him go on Medicaid until he ages out at 18. He is healthy, and fingers crossed he stays that way.

 

[skyline]

Thank you! That's exactly what I was trying to find. It doesn't make me happy, but it's good to see the exact percentages.