My understanding of Medicaid here, before ObamaCare, was that only children, pregnant women, SSI Disability, and people waiting for a Disability decision were eligible.
In other words, no able bodied adults qualified for Washington state Medicaid, regardless of income.
Under ObamaCare, if I'm correct, all adults and families who earn less than 130% of the poverty rate (so, below $15,000 for a single adult) qualify for Medicaid.
For several years before 2014, Oregon's Medicaid was income based, too.
It was those people, the “new” people in Oregon on Medicaid, who dramatically increased their ER visits.
Same as Oregon, a few years ago Washington dropped the asset test for healthy adult Medicaid qualification and raised the income limit. How do I know? They sent us a letter saying we were being evaluated for it and had to do nothing but wait for a decision. There was nothing whatsoever we had done to request that. We didn’t qualify, because the money I have to withdraw from the IRA for living expenses was in excess of the limit for our family size. But they tried!