State Rules & Variation

Whether your state expanded Medicaid changes the income math entirely, and not every tool accounts for it correctly.

Many states let certain income sources be partially or fully disregarded, a nuance rarely coded into generic tools.

LIHEAP is administered locally, which means the same federal program can look completely different county to county.

Broad-based categorical eligibility can bypass standard income tests, a workaround many calculators don’t model at all.