Medicaid information

Medicaid information

• There are two parts to Medicaid eligibility. To qualify for Medicaid, a person cannot have income or assets that exceed the amounts that the state has specified.

• The second leg of eligibility is whether a person is a member of a "group" recognized in federal law (e.g., people with disabilities who receive federal Supplemental Security Income (SSI) benefits). In order to receive Medicaid services, a person has to meet both tests. Mandatory groups (e.g., individuals that all states must serve) essentially include SSI recipients and children who live in very low-income households.

• There are options available to states to widen Medicaid eligibility beyond the mandatory groups. People with developmental disabilities qualify for Medicaid by meeting financial eligibility tests and being members of recognized but broader groups (e.g., individuals with disabilities). It is important to understand that over the past 15 years, federal Medicaid policy has changed to permit states to offer Medicaid services to more groups of individuals who do not actually receive public assistance payments. Medicaid no longer is closely tied to welfare.

• There are certain eligibility options that can play an important role in enabling people with developmental disabilities to qualify for Medicaid services, even though these options are not reserved exclusively for such individuals. These options revolve around children and adults who do not qualify as members of a mandatory group, generally because their or the family's income prevents them from being eligible to receive an SSI or other public assistance payment.

Children

• Not all children and youth with severe disabilities can qualify for an SSI payment and, thus, Medicaid. In the case of children with severe disabilities who live with their families, SSI rules require that a portion of the family's income be counted as available ("deemed") to the child. Even in the case of low-to-moderate income families, this requirement can result in the child's not qualifying for an SSI payment and, thus, make the child ineligible for Medicaid. However, if the child were placed permanently out of the family home in an institutional setting, the family's income would not be counted and the child would qualify for Medicaid. In order to correct this problem, in 1982 Congress enacted the "Katie Beckett option" (also known as "TEFRA 134"). Under this option, a state can decide not to count the family's income when the child meets SSI disability criteria and would be eligible for Medicaid if the child were in an institutional setting.

On the Net

www.tash.org