Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

[justabubba]

I've already given you evidence from your own link:

"A person*may*qualify for Medicaid if they earn $16,643 a year as a single individual or $28,180 for a family of three..."

May qualify for Medicaid... may. Therefore they may not qualify depending on circumstances.

what circumstances would disqualify that low income individual from being eligible to receive medicaid coverage?

 

[Aristaeus]

what circumstances would disqualify that low income individual from being eligible to receive medicaid coverage?

I don't know the technical aspects of eligibility, however the fact that it says "a person may qualify for medicaid if..." clearly means that a low income in itself is not a qualifying factor as claimed by the poster, otherwise it would say "a person qualifies for medicaid if..."

 

[justabubba]

I don't know the technical aspects of eligibility, however the fact that it says "a person may qualify for medicaid if..." clearly means that a low income in itself is not a qualifying factor as claimed by the poster, otherwise it would say "a person qualifies for medicaid if..."

here you go so that it is no longer guess-work
https://www.hhs.gov/answers/medicare-and-medicaid/who-is-eligible-for-medicaid/index.html

 

[Aristaeus]

here you go so that it is no longer guess-work
https://www.hhs.gov/answers/medicare-and-medicaid/who-is-eligible-for-medicaid/index.html

So that backs up what I was saying:

"You may qualify for free or low-cost care through Medicaid based on income and family size. In all states, Medicaid provides health coverage for some low-income people."

So low income is not a guarantee of medicaid access, as I said.

 

[BrainNebula]

So that backs up what I was saying:

"You may qualify for free or low-cost care through Medicaid based on income and family size. In all states, Medicaid provides health coverage for some low-income people."

So low income is not a guarantee of medicaid access, as I said.

They say may because some people may consider themselves low-income and yet not be low enough income to qualify.

 

[Greenbeard]

So that backs up what I was saying:

"You may qualify for free or low-cost care through Medicaid based on income and family size. In all states, Medicaid provides health coverage for some low-income people."

So low income is not a guarantee of medicaid access, as I said.

Medicaid historically was a categorical eligibility program, meaning poverty was usually a necessary but not a sufficient condition for eligibility. You needed to be poor or near-poor and fit into a specific eligibility category: children, pregnant women, parents, old or blind or disabled people, etc. In most states, if you were a childless adult, you couldn't get Medicaid no matter how poor you were. And even if you were poor and fit into an eligibility category, there were additional asset tests that you could rule you out. It was all very complicated and byzantine.

What the ACA did was overhaul the eligibility and enrollment for Medicaid and massively simplify things. In states that accepted the Medicaid expansion, being poor became a sufficient condition for eligibility. All poor (citizens) in those states can get it. And in all states, even those that haven't accepted the expansion, asset tests were eliminated and enrollment processes and systems were streamlined to make the program less exclusionary and more inviting.

So the answer is that it depends which state we're talking about but now, thanks to the ACA, in many places being poor is enough to get one access to Medicaid.