QI, the Qualifying Individual program
QI is the highest income band of the Medicare Savings Programs. Like SLMB it pays the Part B premium — $202.90 a month in 2026, $2,434.80 over a year — and nothing toward deductibles or coinsurance. It is also the program states are least likely to call by its federal name: 10 of the 51 we have checked use something else.
The 2026 limits
| Where you live | Monthly income, one person | Married couple | Resources |
|---|---|---|---|
| 48 states and DC135% FPL + $20 | $1,816 | $2,455 | $9,950 / $14,910 |
| Alaska | $2,265 | $3,064 | $9,950 / $14,910 |
| Hawaii | $2,086 | $2,821 | $9,950 / $14,910 |
POMS HI 00815.023: Medicare Savings Programs income and resource limits, TN 64, February 2026. QI has a floor as well as a ceiling: below $1,616 the application is considered for SLMB, and below $1,350 for QMB, which pays more.
The names states use instead
QI is renamed more often than either of the other programs. Where SLMB variants at least keep the letters — SLIB, SLM, SMB — QI turns into initialisms with no visible relation to it, and two states independently settled on the same one.
| State | What it is called there | Monthly income, one person |
|---|---|---|
| Connecticut | ALMB (Additional Low Income Medicare Beneficiaries) | $3,272 |
| Iowa | E-SLMB | $1,796 |
| Kansas | ELMB | not published |
| Maryland | SLMB II | $1,816 |
| Michigan | ALMB | $1,816 |
| Missouri | SLMB2 | $1,796 |
| New Hampshire | SLMB135 | $1,796 |
| North Carolina | MQB-E | $1,796 |
| Oregon | SMF | $1,796 |
| Wisconsin | SLMB+ | $1,795.50 |
Connecticut and Michigan both call it ALMB. Iowa’s E-SLMB and Wisconsin’s SLMB+ name QI as an extension of SLMB, which describes how the bands sit next to each other more plainly than the federal name does.
States that set the ceiling higher
7 of the 51 states checked set a QI ceiling at least five per cent above the federal $1,816:
- Maine — $3,325 a month, 183% of the federal figure, with no resource test.
- Connecticut — $3,272 a month, 180% of the federal figure, with no resource test.
- Massachusetts — $2,993 a month, 165% of the federal figure, with no resource test.
- Vermont — $2,685 a month, 148% of the federal figure, with no resource test.
- New York — $2,494 a month, 137% of the federal figure, with no resource test.
- Indiana — $2,481 a month, 137% of the federal figure.
- Rhode Island — $2,255 a month, 124% of the federal figure.
Separately, 12 jurisdictions apply no resource test to any of the three programs: Alabama, Connecticut, Delaware, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts, Mississippi, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Vermont and Washington. The state-by-state table carries every figure and its source.
Comparing states on QI is where the $20 trap bites hardest
A $20 monthly general income disregard — the SSI general income exclusion — applies before income is compared to the limit, and states do not all publish it the same way. Of the 51 checked, 27 print the bare poverty guideline, 14 print it with the $20 already added, and 10 do not say. At the QI band that is the difference between a published $1,796 and $1,816 for identical policy.
It bites hardest here because QI is the top band: someone who reads a bare $1,796 table as the real ceiling, and whose income is $1,805, concludes they are over the limit when they are not. The state table records which convention each state used, where the state says.
QI carries Extra Help too
Federal regulation treats anyone eligible for QMB, SLMB or QI as a full-subsidy individual for Part D, so Extra Help arrives automatically. That includes the consequence for the Part D late enrollment penalty, which under 42 CFR 423.780(e) is not charged while a person is subsidy-eligible. QI pays the smallest of the three benefits on its face and still carries that with it. The waiver lasts as long as the eligibility does, rather than cancelling the penalty outright.
Published rules and figures, each traced to the agency that published them. It is not advice, not an eligibility determination, and not a substitute for applying — the state Medicaid agency decides, and applications go to it rather than to this site. Free, unbiased help is available from a State Health Insurance Assistance Program counsellor at shiphelp.org. If a figure here does not match the agency page it links to, tell us and we will correct it.