How To Find Out If Someone Has Medicaid

Medicaid is a blazon of free or low-cost health insurance for people with low incomes. It'southward backed by the federal regime, but each state sets its own rules. In some states, you can authorize for Medicaid based merely on your income — in other states, you lot qualify based on income and other factors, like being pregnant or having a disability.

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Medicaid is a course of public health insurance offered in each land. The federal and state governments share the costs of paying for Medicaid — and then while each country runs its ain Medicaid program, they all take to follow federal guidelines. You may hear different names for Medicaid depending on where yous live. For example, the Medicaid program in Massachusetts is called MassHealth.

People sometimes confuse Medicaid with Medicare, a federal health insurance program that mainly covers people ages 65 and older. But Medicaid isn't only for older adults — it besides covers low-income children and adults of all ages with certain medical needs.

In most cases, Medicaid coverage is costless, and co-pays for visits and prescriptions are either zero or very low. Based on federal rules, all Medicaid programs must encompass certain kinds of basic healthcare, including:

Hospital visits
Lab tests and x-rays
Long-term care in nursing homes

All Medicaid programs also encompass central services for children, similar lead screenings. States can too choose to include optional services in their Medicaid programs, like dental and vision care. All states include prescription drug coverage nether Medicaid.

Who Is Eligible for Medicaid?

The exact eligibility rules for Medicaid vary from country to country. Since 2014, states have had the option to expand Medicaid coverage to all low-income people. In states that expanded Medicaid coverage, anyone with a low household income (below 133% of the federal poverty level) can qualify for Medicaid.

In all states, Medicaid usually covers the following groups if they have low incomes:

Parents, pregnant people, and children
People over age 65
People who are blind or have sure disabilities
People who go Supplemental Security Income (SSI)

States may also cover certain groups based on their medical needs and expenses. For instance, people with low incomes may qualify for Medicaid if they have certain cancers or other serious wellness bug that demand a lot of medical care.

If you have eligible medical expenses but your income is too high, you may be able to become Medicaid using a "spend downward." In a spend downwardly, you get eligible after spending a certain amount of coin on qualifying medical costs. For case, if you need nursing domicile care but you have too much savings to get Medicaid, you tin can pay for a few months of care yourself until your savings is low plenty to qualify.

There's too a related program called the Children'southward Health Insurance Program (CHIP). CHIP covers children whose families make too much money to qualify for Medicaid, merely not enough to afford other health insurance.

How Exercise Yous Utilise for Medicaid?

Dissimilar the more streamlined federal process for enrolling in Medicare, you have to enroll in Medicaid through your state. The easiest way to discover out if you lot authorize for Medicaid and how to apply is to visit HealthCare.gov.

If you lot apply for insurance through the HealthCare.gov Wellness Insurance Marketplace, it will tell yous if you qualify for Medicaid, Scrap or other depression-price health insurance. So even if you don't qualify for Medicaid, you can detect out most other Market insurance plans you may qualify for.

You can too find your state's Medicaid info at Medicaid.gov, including contact information, eligibility rules and instructions for how to use. And recall that if you currently have Medicaid but you motility to a new state, you lot'll have to employ again in that state.