It sounds like you're talking about the Medicaid "donut hole." The ACA intended for states to expand Medicaid to cover the poorest Americans, but thanks to an u

It sounds like you're talking about the Medicaid "donut hole." The ACA intended for states to expand Medicaid to cover the poorest Americans, but thanks to an unexpected supreme court challenge many Republican-controlled states opted not to expand Medicaid, putting a lot of people into the catch 22 of making too much to qualify for the existing Medicaid program, but not making enough to qualify for the new Obamacare subsidies. It's a crappy situation that's being rectified little by little as those states are cutting deals with the Obama administration. Here's how you can hack the system, though. The IRS (who's in charge of enforcing the subidies) has determined that there's no penalty if you end up making less money in a year than you had estimated that you'd make. So if you make $20k per year, but you need to make $25k to qualify for a subsidy, you can just enter $25k at healthcare.gov, and you'll get the subsidy. If you end up making less than that when you submit that year's taxes, you won't be penalized, and you won't have to give the subsidy back. IANAL, etc.