Confused about Covered California vs Medi-Cal

Hi Everyone,

Recently my dad was laid off and our family will be losing our health insurance plan with Kaiser. I unfortunately don’t know anything about health insurance and how it works and would appreciate a dumbed down explanation on the differences between Covered California vs Medi-Cal. I have so many questions but a few are:

Are Covered Calfornia and Medi-Cal two separate things?

After inputting my income which is less than $15000 annually (or my household’s income which is now going to be less than $25000 annually), it seems like we qualify for free healthcare. Would it better to apply all together as one household or for each person in the household to apply individually?

Is there any resource with a map of hospitals/doctors who take Medi-Cal (or Covered CA? sorry, once again, don’t really understand the difference) near me?

Is there any way to still keep Kaiser with any Medi-Cal/Covered CA plan out there?

What do you personally prefer between HMO, PPO, EPO?

Some details about our situation:

No unemployment/EDD

Household of 4, all US citizens, no minors but kids are under 25, no current college students

3 of us are working part-time jobs

This probably sounds like really obvious information to some and I’m a little embarrassed to be asking but any help is greatly appreciated! Thank you.

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