AB 238

Under current law, the Department of Health Services (DHS) administers the

Medical Assistance (MA) program, under which eligible persons receive health care

or long-term care services. Under one category of eligibility, commonly known as the

medically needy category, a person is eligible if his or her income and assets do not

exceed a specified level and he or she is blind or totally and permanently disabled.

Generally, if the person is married, the income and assets of both of the spouses are

taken into consideration for purposes of determining eligibility or continued

eligibility.

This bill requires DHS to request a waiver that would allow DHS, if the waiver

is granted, to disregard the income and assets of a person's spouse and to continue

treating the person as single for purposes of determining the person's continued

eligibility and family size if the person: 1) is blind or totally and permanently

disabled; 2) is receiving MA under the medically needy category; 3) was single when

he or she first became eligible for MA; and 4) marries after the bill is enacted and the

waiver goes into effect. The bill makes an exception for persons who reside or begin

residing in medical institutions or nursing facilities and receive long-term care

services, because those persons are subject to federal law requirements relating to

the assets of spouses when one spouse resides in an institution and the other does

not.