Health care can quickly become expensive, particularly skilled nursing home care. When you’re planning for the senior years of your life, you must consider how you’ll meet the costs of long-term care.
Medi-Cal, California’s Medicaid program, can be extremely helpful in these cases. This is especially true for seniors. Medicare does not cover much of the expenses associated with skilled nursing care, long-term or otherwise. But you must meet certain eligibility criteria to qualify for the state program’s benefits.
Here, we’ll run through the aid program’s fundamentals and help you understand the Medi-Cal California eligibility standards. This way, you won’t run into any surprises when you delve into the application process. Also, we will address how a lawyer with significant experience in Medi-Cal’s ins and outs can help you obtain (and retain) Medi-Cal assistance.
What is Medi-Cal? The Basics
Medi-Cal helps certain California residents pay for medical services –specifically those with lower incomes or limited resources. For example, Medi-Cal may cover:
- People aged 65 and older
- Disabled individuals
- Pregnant women
- Dependent children and adolescents
Medi-Cal covers most or all costs of “medically necessary” care and devices. These range from regular checkups, medical devices (hearing aids, et al), and prescriptions to emergency visits, hospital procedures and long-term care – including home health care.
Medi-Cal Eligibility
You may be eligible for Medi-Cal if you are over 65 (or fall into one of the other aforementioned demographics) and you have limited assets available to pay for long-term care or other healthcare necessities. This means, for example, that your income cannot exceed certain levels.
Medi-Cal uses the federal poverty level as its baseline for income eligibility. As of 2025, your annual earnings cannot exceed $21,597 for an individual or $29,187 for couples; equivalent to 138% of the FPL. (The percentage remains the same each year, but the amounts fluctuate with the FPL, so be sure to check for increases annually.)
Currently, assets you already own don’t impact your eligibility – only income. In 2026 the asset limits are $130,000 for a single individual and $195,000 for a couple (married or domestic partners).
In 2026 California’s government is reinstating the asset limits in the near future. When this occurs, keep in mind that certain possessions still may not impact your eligibility (assuming the new standards largely mirror the old ones). These include:
- Your primary residence and vehicle.
- Basic household goods like clothing, groceries, furniture, etc.
Whether the old asset eligibility rules return or not, assets still count toward Medi-Cal’s Estate Recovery Program. After a Medi-Cal recipient dies, the state is entitled to recover some of the costs it incurred while providing care. Only certain assets can be recovered, however – those that would be subject to probate and were owned by the deceased at the time of their death.
