QMB and SLMB and QI (Oh, My)

Medicare is a great health-care program for its participants. Most Medicare beneficiaries prefer its coverage to what they might get under Medicaid. But what about people who can’t afford the premiums for Medicare Part B (and Part D), the co-payments and the deductibles. For them, QMB and SLMB and QI might offer help. But what are those programs, and how do they actually work? We’ve written about the Medicaid-based programs to subsidize Medicare costs in the past. The eligibility numbers change each year, but the program descriptions are still accurate. In this podcast we discuss some of the issues, and the interrelationship between Medicare, AHCCCS (Arizona’s Medicaid program), and QMB (and SLMB and QI).