Income eligibility for KCHIP Lexington health insurance
Medicaid is one of the easier types of federal assistance to get, but it still disqualifies many families who are unable to provide health insurance for their children. The number of families without child health insurance in Lexington, Kentucky is particularly high, and that is why the state program, KCHIP, exists to help families who fall through the Medicaid gap receive assistance for their children. The decision of who is and isn’t eligible for KCHIP depends on the age of the children involved and how much their parents make. You don’t have to be below the poverty level to qualify your kids for KCHIP–the cap is 200% of the poverty level.
An example of a family who is 200% of the federal poverty level is a family with two adults and two kids that brings home slightly over forty thousand every year. There are different requirements for the number of people in every family. If you have a family of five people, the cap is $48,260. For six, it is $55, 220. For seven, it is $62,180. If you have more children than that, contact your KCHIP office that is local to find out what the maximum income for your family size is. The income, you should be aware, is based on how much you make every year before taxes are taken out, not what you actually bring home.
The income limits for KCHIP don’t always remain the same, as they have to be adjusted for inflation and changes in wages. If you are unsure of your income, make sure that each April you check and see what the new limits are so that you don’t waste time applying only to find out that your are ineligible.
Cheers,
Fashun Guadarrama.
Losing Kentucky Child Health Insurance Plan
Sometimes even the twenty dollar per month premium required by the Kentucky Child Health Insurance Plan is too much, and you can lose your coverage for your child by either failing to pay the premium or failing to renew the coverage at the end of the twelve month cycle. When you do this, you will have to go to a local DBCS office to reapply for KCHIP coverage. Your coverage is not immediately canceled after missing one payment, but rather immediately after you miss your second payment. If you manage to apply the same day that you lose your coverage, there will be no gap.
If you lose your coverage, you will owe $20 of past due premium payments. If you make this payment, then you will be able to reapply.You don’t have to wait any certain amount of time to reapply after you have made the past due payment. The same process goes for when you reapply, and you will have to double the premium pay for the first month and it must be made within two months of your receipt of the premium payment bill.
If the reason that you couldn’t afford to pay the last premium was because of a significant change in finances, then it’s possible that you may be eligible for Medicaid instead of KCHIP. If this is the case with you, then you should try applying for Medicaid instead of KCHIP. If you get aproved to receive Medicaid assistance for your child, then you don’t have to pay the past due KCHIP premium. If you don’t, though, you are required to pay it for the next twelve months. If that much time passes, then you can re apply for KCHIP without paying the past due amount.
Cheers,
Fashun Guadarrama.
I can’t pay for an individual medical health insurance plan!
Reader question:
I can’t pay for an individual medical health insurance plan! What do I do?
Greg
I’ll help you.
There are a lot of reasons that somebody might not be able to afford individual medical health insurance coverage. Sometimes, if you are a student in college, you might have recently been dropped from your parents’ health insurance plan and, busy with school and having only a part time job, might find it difficult to pay for your own. If you find yourself in this situation you should see what kind of deals your college has to offer when it comes to health insurance.
Even if you aren’t a student, there is something there to help you. A lot of federal programs exist that can either provide someone with medical health insurance or help them to get it, so long as you are eligible.
- Medicaid. This is for people who have a low income and are pregnant, or for their children. It does not cover the adult, though, unless they are pregnant, so if you have children but are also looking for health insurance for yourself, this won’t provide all that you need.
- Medicare. This is most often used for people who are sixty five and up and people who have disabilities that make it difficult for them to get work and provide for their own medical health insurance. It also provides for people who are in the later stages of renal disease.
- Children’s Health Insurance Program. This covers the gap between Medicaid and actually being able to afford health insurance on your own. You have to make a very low income to qualify for Medicaid, and if you make more than the eligibility mark but still can’t handle the high medical health insurance costs, CHIP can help. Again, though, it only provides for children.
A lot of states have their own plans that help children with parents who can’t afford medical health insurance get insured. This doesn’t help the parent, but there are some states that do extend this coverage to insure the parent of said children as well, although not very many states do this.
Cheers,
Fashun Guadarrama.