I don't have any good answers, but I have some additional questions. If other forum members can help us get those answered, maybe a best option will become obvious.
1) Isn't medicaid still "means tested"?? What does medicaid "look like" for someone who has income at a level low enough to qualify, but has enough assets to be comfortably retired? Someone with an income of $15000, but a net worth of $900K for example.
2) The law says that to be eligible for an ACA plan, your income must be above the threshold to qualify for medicaid. But isn't it true that when you sign up to actually purchase an ACA plan, you provide an "estimated" income?? Your real income can never really be known until the end of the year. And for those who buy ACA exchange plans, their monthly premiums are calculated assuming their income will meet their estimated income. As I understand it, if your income, as reported on tax return, is enough higher that it bumps you into a higher "ACA subsidy bracket", then you'd basically owe the difference between the subsidy you did receive minus the subsidy you should have received.
So my second question is a technical one: What is done if the actual income is LOWER than the estimated income? By the time that calculation can be made, the year will be over. All premiums will have already been paid and insurance provided. It seems that I read somewhere that your previous year's tax return should be used to calculate your estimate, but I know from experience when buying an ACA plan for 2014, I was not required to provide any documentation.
Are there any measures in place to keep an early retiree making $14,000 a year from just estimating their income at $30,000, and buying an ACA plan with a subsidy based on that amount? What about doing that same thing the next year, when their income from the previous year really was $14,000??
The law is so new, there may be no way to make all the unknowns known before you need to buy insurance. If I was in your shoes, I would lean heavily towards buying a plan on the ACA exchange and dealing with the unknown consequences before I would sign up for medicaid and navigate those consequences. After all, aren't we really ALL in your shoes?? All of us (not eligible for medicaid) are eligible to buy a plan on the ACA even if our high income or employer-provider coverage prevents a subsidized price. And even those of us with what we consider a secure job making $300K/yr, could find ourselves in a weird circumstance such as an accident in the second week of January that kept us from working the rest of the year, causing our income to be below the 100% of the FPL. Obviously, frugal early retirees are more likely than others to find themselves in this situation. Maybe in January some forum members will find themselves in this situation and be able to report their experience.