General

General A. The Affordable Care Act (ACA) requires the use of Modified Adjusted Gross Income (MAGI)- based budgeting rules for determining household size, household composition, household income and need standards. B. Household or family size is the number of persons counted as members of an individual’s household. In determining Medicaid eligibility, if one of the household members is pregnant, the pregnant woman is counted as herself plus the number of children she is expected to deliver. Individuals cannot choose who is to be included or excluded from their household for budgeting purposes, even though all household members may not be applying. All household members and their relationship to each other, tax filing status and marital status are considered for budgeting purposes. Married couples living together must always be included in the same household, regardless of the tax filing status of the couple. C. Household income, as defined in Miss. Admin. Code, Title 23, Part 104, Chapter 11, includes every individual included in the household. The only allowable disregard is a five (5) percentage point disregard of the Federal Poverty Level (FPL) based on household size. D. Need standards in effect for Families, Children and CHIP (FCC) programs covered categories of eligibility prior to the implementation of the ACA were converted to MAGI-equivalent levels to account for any income disregards in use prior to the ACA. The limits, based on either a state-established threshold or FPL, were adjusted to account for an average of income disregards in use prior to the ACA and could not be less than the income levels in use prior to the ACA.