[USER]

I’ve decided I’m taking a gap year starting Jan 1st next year. I will be applying for Marketplace Insurance.

My income as such will be very low next year to where it’d be below the poverty level.

Would I therefore end up on Medicaid?

What concerns or things do I need to think about if this happens?

[Rick]

In general, yes. But if you know Medicaid rules in one state……you know Medicaid rules in one state.

Bad industry jokes aside, this stuff is intensely state specific so make sure you take general advise here as a starting point and not end point to your research.

Any chance you want to spend that sabbatical time traveling abroad?

If so, there are a handful of fairly inexpensive travel health insurance providers out there and you could skip the Medicaid vs ACA mess entirely.

[Jeannette]

Use the low income year to convert traditional 401k to Roth 401k and other things where you can benefit from low income profile.

[Christopher]

it’ll depend heavily on your state (and possibly county). When we retired, our income was low enough that our kids were on it for a while.

That meant changing providers pretty regularly as they dropped support for Medicaid due to paperwork requirements or other annoyances.

Coverage overall is acceptable but we haven’t had higher needs.

Find people local to you who use it to get a better feel for what to expect.

You can potentially do Roth conversions or gains harvesting to bump up your income into ACA range if desired.

[Ann]

I’m an agent and it will first and foremost, depend on if your state expanded Medicaid.

In my state they did not, so that means if an individual makes less than $14,580 they do not get a subsidy and are expected to pay full price.

[Kelly]

You can also work a month or 2 next year to get the income you need to qualify for ACA and do your gap year from March to March or whatever you need to get you to the ACA number you need.

Or as someone suggested convert traditional 401K to Roth 401K or a combination of the 2.

[Holly]

It might be state-specific but I believe Medicaid looks at income for 2 previous years.

[Author]

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