<p>I figured at least someone could give me some advice. I'll be enrolling at Florida State University for fall 2014. FSU has a health insurance requirement, and offers a plan ~$1600 for year round coverage. The thing is I am low income, automatic EFC 0 and am currently enrolled in medicaid at least until August of this year. My mom and I thought that I would not continue qualifying for medicaid benefits, and that I would have to purchase private healthcare. I'm really not sure how much healthcare costs, but $1600/yr seemed a little expensive so I decided to go on healthcare.gov and fill it out to see what options I have in the marketplace. I filled the form out with my info and at the end it told me that I was qualified for Medicaid and that my info/application was sent to the Florida DCF for evaluation. I called DCF because I was under the impression that I no longer qualified (I turned 18 in Nov.), and they told me that I was correct. So I called the healthcare.gov number and was told that if I didn't qualify for medicaid there was nothing they could do, and that I didn't qualify to shop in the marketplace. If I have to, I can make the university health plan work, but my question is how am I being magically excluded by the government? I guess they don't think that everyone deserves access to healthcare. Just for more info to help anyone who knows anything, it's just me and my mom. My mom lives on SSI. I currently don't have a job but will get at least a part time position over the summer, and depending on my FA award will most likely have a work study job during the year. I apologize for the long read, I just need some help!</p>
<p>Unfortunately, I do not believe Florida is an expansion state. The ACA was supposed to expand Medicaid to all under x% of federal poverty level but some states chose not to expand once the Supreme Court struck down this part of the law. </p>
<p>You do qualify to shop in the marketplace but if you’re below 100% FPL (I believe is the number for a non-expansion state), you do not qualify for a subsidy so you would pay full sticker price.</p>
<p>Personally, I’d call your local state rep and tell them exactly how their decision not to expand is affecting you ;)</p>
<p>You also might consider calling your U and explaining your situation. I don’t know what they’ll say but I promise you’re not the first with this problem.</p>
<p>$1600 year is going to be less than anything you’ll find on the open market or in the exchanges (without supplement), and those policies are also going to have a very very large deductible. Look at the FSU policy and see if it is good. </p>
<p>Do contact FSU and maybe they suggestions, or maybe they can increase your award to cover this mandatory fee.</p>
<p>No, there must be a misunderstanding. You don’t qualify as a child of your mother, anymore, but now that you are 18, you are your own household and your coverage is based on your income. Call as an individual, not as your mom’s child.</p>
<p>You should qualify for medicaid. Talk to an insurance advocate at your school and/or someone at medicaid (on the phone, not online) because you should not have to pay the $1600, and if for any reason you do, medicaid should cover it.</p>
<p>Now there was something recently in the news about this issue. People were literally not going to college because they couldn’t pay for the insurance, or they were going part-time, Trouble is, I cannot remember if the change was federal or state.</p>
<p>You can also go to a local hospital financial counseling service or whoever does this kind of insurance counseling in your state. They will help you apply, answer questions, and help you out.</p>
<p>Do you have an adult who can help you with this at home?</p>
<p>I have my mom helping, but she isn’t internet-capable. When I did apply I did it as my own household. After toying around with the subsidy calculator, my understanding is that if I could get my Modified Adjusted Gross Income to at or above 100% of the federal poverty level I would essentially pay nothing for a bronze-level plan, or a couple hundred for silver. My question is, could I create a scenario where my MAGI is above the poverty level? Could I use my Pell Grant/Bright Futures/Scholarships to pay for room/board/living expenses on purpose to make it “income” and pay for tuition using student loans? (I’m going to have to take some loans for sure, but not too many). Until HS graduation (May) I get my dad’s SSD benefits, so that is in the amount of 562 for 5 months. I plan on working over the summer, plus doing work study if I am awarded. 2014 income is a little iffy because I will only get 1/2 of the scholarship money for one semester.
$562<em>5=2810 (SSD)
$8</em>25<em>8 = 1600 (if I could work minimum wage ~20 hours a week for 8 weeks)
$5645/2 = 2822.50 (Half of my Pell Grant)
$103</em>12 = 1236 (Bright futures for 12 credit hours)
$3000/2 = 1500 (Work study)</p>
<p>All of this together equals $9968.50, and it doesn’t include any aid offered by the school yet, (except for the WS assumption). Is there anything else I can do to increase my income for the year? Is this wrong, or is it just working with the system that is already in place. I don’t think I should have to pay for HC, but I would never commit fraud.</p>
<p>VT, does your mom file taxes? Will she claim you as a dependent in 2014? If so you would not be eligible for a subsidy no matter what your income level.</p>
<p>Vanilla, none of that is income except the work study, and you don’t have that yet or before August, and anything you earn from a job. Amount you get for scholarships, bright futures, etc, isn’t income. SSD isn’t income. A loan isn’t income.</p>
<p>Ironically, you don’t qualify for medicaid and you don’t earn enough for ‘free’ subsidies under the exchange. I don’t know your mother’s situation but she might lose medicaid too if she qualified for it because she had you, a child. In Florida an adult without a child doesn’t qualify (or didn’t, I don’t think it’s changed). If she can qualify for a subsidy on the exchange, a family policy, then you can stay on that policy until you are 26.</p>
<p>It really is screwed up now and it is people like you who got dropped. They want you young people to sign up, but you can’t afford it.</p>
<p>I didn’t think the loans counted, but I thought scholarships that were not used towards tuition/fees/books were counted as taxable income. My mom will be fine, she gets medicaid automatically because she is enrolled in the SSI program.</p>
<p>Vanilla, you will get a 1098T for your scholarships and grants, but your tuition and fees, books, etc are excluded, and you’ll only be taxed on any amounts that covered R&B, and that will be for 2014 taxes, paid in 2015 so that won’t help you in August.</p>
<p>FPL is $11,490. </p>
<p>If your mother doesn’t benefit from claiming you as a dependent, claim yourself in 2014.</p>
<p>There are a lot of holes in the ACA, and this is one of them.</p>
<p>However, if this was 2013 before the exchanges and credits were available, Vanilla would be in the same place. He would be an 18 year old starting college, off medicaid, required to have insurance in order to attend college. That has always been the rule, and the ACA didn’t change that at all. The only difference may be that some policies that may have been available for purchase by an individual may no longer be offered by the insurer. He would have still had to pay for them</p>
<p>The $1600 premium is $133/mo. That’s not a bad rate for a simple policy and must, by law, cover preventative care. Some of the policies that were not renewed by insurers may have been cheaper, but they didn’t have to cover the preventative stuff. Vanilla may also get better care with a new policy. Florida medicaid is notoriously awful. Not very many providers accept it. It doesn’t cover much.</p>
<p>This hole was created by the SCOTUS and the states individually, NOT the ACA. If the ACA had been left alone, VT would be eligible for Medicaid. Yes, pre-ACA he would not have been.</p>
<p>Wow, romanigypsyeyes, thanks for the civics lesson. I had erroneously assumed that the expansion meant adjusting some income thresholds; I didn’t realize that it created a new category of eligible recipients. (In fact, I didn’t realize that these categories even existed in addition to income thresholds.)</p>
<p>While I hope there is some relief (complete relief, actually) for this articulate and sincere young person, I also concur that $1600 a year is relatively very reasonable if the plan provided is of sufficient quality.</p>
<p>This hole was created by the SCOTUS and the states individually, NOT the ACA. If the ACA had been left alone, VT would be eligible for Medicaid. Yes, pre-ACA he would not have been.</p>
<p>Well, I guess the supreme court should just not do its job and not declare laws that are unconstitutional unconstitutional?</p>
<p>The Supreme Court found that section of the ACA requiring states to increase medicaid unconstitutional (and I disagree, as I think the entire law should have been found unconstitutional; not that we don’t need universal health care, just that THIS law is unconstitutional). Since medicaid is a program funded in part by the state, the federal government can’t force states to expand. SC also found that the ACA mandates are a tax. Congress can make another plan if it so chooses. It could expand the tax credits to those making under 100% of FPL and allow them to buy insurance off the exchanges. It could make the premiums paid a full tax credit. It could design a single payer federal system.</p>
<p>I don’t think any of those things are going to happen because there are really very few people who fall into this group, and they aren’t a strong lobby base. The majority of college students are on their parents’ policies, on medicaid in the states that expanded, or get financial aid through the college to cover the policy offered by the college.</p>
<p>My mom says that she’ll be able to pay for my coverage, I’m going to get one of the catastrophic plans for $86/month provided it will waive my obligation to buy University health insurance, which by the way is not “sufficient” under ACA</p>
<p>That was my concern, I have reviewed some of the college health plans in the past and they have been pretty weak. You would think that the same mandates that apply to all plans offered on the Exchange’s would also apply to all plans available privately.</p>