Data as of December 2009.
The following states offer coverage to legal immigrants without a five year waiting period. These states have submitted a state plan amendment to adopt the new option to cover immigrant children who have been legally residing in the U.S. for less than five years: CA, CT, DC, HI, IL, IA, ME, MD, MA, NJ, NM, NY, OR, PA, RI, VA, WA. New Mexico and Rhode Island adopted the new option to expand coverage to immigrant children who have been legally residing in the U.S. for less than five years. Virginia provides coverage to legal immigrant children without requiring five-year wait for families with incomes up to 133% of the federal poverty line.
The following states have the unborn child option which permits states to consider the fetus a "targeted low-income child" for CHIP coverage: AR, CA, IL, LA, MA, MI, MN, NE, OK, OR, RI, TN, TX, WA, WI.
Eligibility levels shown as percent of the FPL. Currency figures based on FPL for a family of three in 2009: $18,310 for 48 contiguous states and District of Columbia, $22,890 for Alaska, $21,060 for Hawaii.

Source 1: A Foundation for Health Reform: Findings of a 50 State Survey of Eligibility Rules, Enrollment and Renewal Procedures, and Cost-Sharing Practices in Medicaid and CHIP for Children and Parents During 2009. Data based on a national survey conducted by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities for the Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured, December 2009. Available at http://www.kff.org/medicaid/7855.cfm. 2009 HHS Poverty Guidelines: http://aspe.hhs.gov/poverty/09poverty.shtml.
State data are from Source 1.

Source 2: Medicaid Eligibility, Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
US figures from Source 2.

The Federal Poverty Level (FPL) was established to help government agencies determine eligibility levels for public assistance programs such as Medicaid. FPL is represented in this resource as poverty guidelines as opposed to the slightly different poverty thresholds.

1. In Louisiana, the income eligibility guideline is 185 percent of the federal poverty line, but the state disregards income between 185 and 200 percent of the federal poverty line.

Under longstanding federal law, states must follow certain rules in determining income-eligibility, but they also have considerable flexibility regarding whether they will count or exempt certain types or amounts of income and whether they allow deductions for certain types or amounts of expenses. Typically, states “disregard” — that is, they do not count — a portion of earnings from a working family’s income to reflect that these resources are needed to cover work-related expenses and generally are not available to cover other costs, such as the cost of purchasing health coverage.

45 states, including DC, use the standard general income disregard of $20 when determining eligibility, which is added to the monthly income limit for the individual or couple.

In 11 states, known as 209(b) states, Medicaid eligibility rules for people with disabilities and the elderly are slightly different from the federal SSI program. In 209(b) states, both the financial and non-financial eligibility criteria can be more restrictive than the federal standard, as long as they are no more restrictive than the rules they had in place in 1972.
209(b) eligibility states: Connecticut, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Minnesota, Missouri, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, and Virginia.

Data for Colorado, Connecticut, Iowa, South Dakota, Washington, and Wyoming do not reflect SSI State Supplement. State Supplements are found at http://ssaonline.us/policy/docs/progdesc/ssi_st_asst/2009/index.html#toc.

FPL for a family of three in 2009: $18,310 for 48 contiguous states and District of Columbia, $22,890 for Alaska, $21,060 for Hawaii.

Medicaid Financial Eligibility: Primary Pathways for the Elderly and People with Disabilities, Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured analysis of data collected by Medicare Rights Center, 2009, February 2010. Available at:

NA: Not Applicable.
SSI: Social Security Income ($2,022 per month in 2009).
SSP: State Supplementary Payments.