What is the Medicare Savings Program?
Medicare has provided millions of senior citizens and people with disabilities with access to health care that they would not otherwise have had. Congress has also created the Medicare Savings Program to protect low-income seniors and people with disabilities from the significant and growing costs required to receive Medicare coverage. The Medicare Catastrophic Coverage Act of 1988 added a limited range of Medicaid benefits to a group of eligible persons called Qualified Medicare Beneficiaries (QMB). In 1990 Congress increased Medicare cost-sharing amounts to a group called Specified Low-Income Medicare Beneficiaries (SLMB). There is also a group know as Qualified Individuals (QI-1). Persons who have Medicare Hospital Insurance (Part A) and income and resources that place them in one of these three groups can receive help with the payment of their Medicare premiums and, in some cases, their deductibles & co-payments along with payment of their monthly premium (up to $35) for the Medica
