Health coverage after aging out

If you were in foster care and on Medicaid on your 18th birthday, you can have Medicaid until the day you turn 26. Arizona calls it YATI, and there is no income limit on it, so a job does not take it away.

That is the short answer. Below is the detail, and then the part most pages skip, which is what happens if you aged out somewhere other than Arizona.

The federal rule

Federal regulation puts former foster youth in their own Medicaid group. The rule reads: "(b) Eligibility. The agency must provide Medicaid to individuals who: (1) Are under age 26". It sits under a subpart headed "Mandatory Coverage of Adoption Assistance and Foster Care Children." Mandatory means the state does not get to opt out. The next paragraph of the same section is labeled "Options," so the difference between must and may is right there on the page. We read this in the October 1, 2025 edition of the regulation on govinfo.

Arizona's version has three conditions in the state policy manual: you were in foster care on the day you turned 18, you were receiving Medicaid on the day you turned 18, and you are an Arizona resident now.

There is no income limit

The AHCCCS public YATI page says it under the heading "Income Limits": "There are no income limits for individuals in the YATI program."

CMS says the same thing in its Former Foster Care Children Medicaid Policy Update of January 30, 2024: "Unlike most other Medicaid categories, there is no income limit for the FFCC eligibility group."

Take the shift. Take the raise. It does not affect this coverage.

What it costs

AHCCCS says there is no monthly premium. Its eligibility policy manual, MA0416, revised March 25, 2025, adds a second sentence: "Customers do not pay a premium for coverage under the YATI program. However, the customer may have co-payments for certain services (MA1202)."

We cannot tell you which services or how much. MA1202, the copayment policy that sentence points to, returns a 404 on the AHCCCS policy manual site. Ask about copays when you enroll, and write down the answer you get.

The part other pages leave out

The original law tied this coverage to foster care under the responsibility of "the State," meaning the same state where you are applying. The SUPPORT Act of 2018 changed one word. It struck "responsibility of the State" and inserted "responsibility of a State," and made the matching change from "the State plan" to "a State plan," which is what makes your Medicaid enrollment in the other state count too.

Congress then limited the change: "The amendments made by this subsection shall take effect with respect to foster youth who attain 18 years of age on or after January 1, 2023." CMS translates that into a birthdate you can check against your own ID. The new rule applies to individuals whose date of birth is on or after January 1, 2005.

So there are two groups. If you were born on or after January 1, 2005, foster care in another state counts and the state has to cover you. If you were born before that, it does not count automatically. CMS told states this directly in a letter dated December 16, 2022, and said covering the older out-of-state group is optional and requires a separate section 1115 demonstration. CMS repeated the two-tier rule in the January 30, 2024 policy update on cms.gov, which is the easier document to pull up.

One more thing worth knowing if a caseworker quotes the federal regulation at you. That regulation text was written in 2016 and has never been updated for the 2018 law. It still says foster care "under the responsibility of the State or a Tribe within the State." Someone reading only that section gets the old rule.

Arizona says three different things

The public YATI page says you had to be in foster care in the custody of the Arizona Department of Child Safety or an Arizona Tribe on the day you turned 18.

The binding state rule, A.A.C. R9-22-1432, amended effective February 2, 2025, says the same narrow thing: foster care "under the responsibility of the State or Tribe within the State," and AHCCCS coverage on your 18th birthday.

The AHCCCS eligibility policy manual, MA0416, says something broader: "Was in the custody of any United States government foster care system or a Tribe on the day the person turned age 18." That list is prefaced with "As of January 1, 2023."

There is a second version of the same split in those lists. The public page wants you to have been receiving AHCCCS Medical Assistance on your 18th birthday. The manual wants Medicaid, from anywhere.

Federal law sits above all three of these for anyone born on or after January 1, 2005. If you aged out in another state, do not treat a website as your answer. Apply, and make AHCCCS give you a decision in writing.

If you aged out before 2023 and out of state

Arizona has asked CMS for authority to cover that group. The request went out for public comment on August 23, 2024, and a final proposal dated December 3, 2024 is listed on the AHCCCS waiver page. No approval is posted there. As of the last documents on that page, it is still pending. Arizona's own filing states the situation in one line: "the SUPPORT Act requirements apply exclusively to individuals who turn 18 on or after January 1, 2023."

If you do not have the paperwork

You may not have your case file, your caseworker's name, or proof you were on Medicaid. CMS has told states: "States must assist applicants in obtaining such documentation, if needed, to determine eligibility." CMS also encourages states to accept your own statement instead, and says "a statement from the applicant, a former foster parent, or a caseworker could suffice."

Two honest limits on that. It is federal guidance written to state agencies, not a rule you can personally enforce, and we have not confirmed what AHCCCS accepts in practice. Ask for the help anyway. If you get told no, ask for it in writing.

If you get stuck in the middle of this, we will sit with you while you make the calls.

Before you act on any of this

We checked this page on 21 August 2026. Eligibility rules change. This one changed in 2023 and Arizona has a request pending with CMS that could change it again.

Every link here goes to the source we actually read, so you can open it and see what it
says today instead of what it said when we wrote this. If the source and this page
disagree, the source is right and we are wrong. Tell us and we will fix it.

If you would rather not chase it down on your own, call or text us at 602-888-0341
and we will look it up with you. That is not a referral to somewhere else. It is us,
on the phone, finding the current answer with you.