Summary
Under the “qualifying individual” (QI) program, states receive 100% federal Medicaid reimbursement for paying Medicare Part B premiums for certain categories of elderly or disabled individuals up to an annual allotment. On June 1, 2015, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) published final state allotments for fiscal year (FY) 2013 and preliminary allotments for FY 2014 in the Federal Register. The QI program received $765 million in FY 2013 and $785 million in FY 2014. While it had been authorized and funded through a series of short-term extensions, the program was recently permanently extended by the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015 (P.L. 114-10).