Medi-Cal income limits: what counts, and what happens if you go over?

tl;dr: does a child's income count towards household income for ACA/Medi-Cal purposes if it is less than he filing threshold of $14,600, and what happens if we go over the Medi-Cal limit towards the end of the year?

Signed up for ACA for 2024 after leaving job. Due to my predicted income for this year, kids ended up on Medi-Cal. Kids are eligible for Medi-Cal if household income is under $82,992 (266% of the 2024 Federal Poverty Level amount of $31,200 for a household of 4). Due to some unexpected additional income, it's going to be really close, so we're watching every penny at this point. On this website that lists the various rules for calculating income, it says "The income of a [child] who is not expected to be required to file taxes is excluded from the tax household’s MAGI income calculation". Am I correct in interpreting this to mean that my teen son's income from his part time job does not count towards household income as long as he stays under $14,600 (the income filing threshold below which one does not need to file a return)?

Also, if we do end up going over it will likely be at in the last few months of the year. What happens at that point? If I had put in that income when signing up, the kids would not have been eligible for Medi-Cal, so are they going to retroactively kick them off and make us pay back everything that Medi-Cal paid for so far this year?

See also  Who's responsible?

submitted by /u/This_Combination_MC
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