Participation in the Qualified Medicare Beneficiary Program

This article has three objectives to estimate how many eligible elderly beneficiaries are participating in the Qualified Medicare Beneficiary (QMB) program; to determine the characteristics of participating and non-participating eligibles; and to identify the most significant barriers to program participation. We used data from the Medicare Current Beneficiary Survey (MCBS) and the Medicare Buy-In file. We found that 41 percent of QMB eligibles are enrolled in the program; participation is higher for poor and less educated beneficiaries, those in poorer health, rural residents, African-Americans, and Hispanics. Finally, we found that, in general, eligible beneficiaries are ill-informed about the program.