How to Qualify for Both Medicare and Medicaid in Colorado

The chart you found is probably the wrong chart

If you went looking for whether you qualify for Medicaid in Colorado, you almost certainly landed on the income table on the Health First Colorado site. It lists four columns: family and caretaker, adults 19 to 64, children, and pregnant women.

Read the second column again. Adults 19 to 64.

If you are on Medicare because you turned 65, you are not in that column. You are not in any of the four. The chart everybody finds is the chart for a different set of people, and reading your own household income against it tells you nothing about your situation.

That is the single most common reason people in Weld and Larimer counties rule themselves out of help they would have got. So here is how the question actually works when you have Medicare.

There are three different things you might qualify for

People say "Medicaid" as if it were one door. For someone on Medicare there are three, and they have different rules, different limits and different places to apply.

1. Full Health First Colorado coverage. This is Colorado's Medicaid program. Having it alongside Medicare is what makes a person "full-benefit dual eligible" in Medicare's own wording. The pathway for adults 65 and older is separate from the expansion pathway in that chart, and it works on different rules — including a resource test the expansion group does not have.

2. A Medicare Savings Program. Four federal programs, run by each state, that pay some or all of your Medicare costs. You can have one of these without having full Medicaid, and a very large number of people do not know that.

3. Extra Help. The federal subsidy that cuts Part D prescription costs. Part D is the drug part of Medicare. Extra Help has its own limits, and if you have full Medicaid you get it automatically.

You can qualify for one, two or all three. They are not a ladder and they are not a package.

The Medicare Savings Program limits, which are higher than people think

These are the 2026 federal figures, taken from medicare.gov. Every one of them resets each January, so check the year before you trust a number you find anywhere — including here, next year.

Qualified Medicare Beneficiary, usually written QMB. Monthly income up to $1,350 for one person, $1,824 for a married couple. Resources up to $9,950 and $14,910. This is the big one. It pays "Part A premiums (if you don't have premium-free Part A); Part B premiums, deductibles, coinsurance, and copayments."

Specified Low-Income Medicare Beneficiary, or SLMB. Monthly income up to $1,616 and $2,184, same resource limits. It pays "Part B premiums only," and you must have both Part A and Part B to qualify.

Qualifying Individual, or QI. Monthly income up to $1,816 and $2,455, same resource limits. Also Part B premiums, also requires both Part A and Part B.

Qualified Disabled and Working Individual, or QDWI. Monthly income up to $5,405 and $7,299, resources $4,000 and $6,000. It pays Part A premiums only, and it is for a narrow group of people who returned to work.

Look at the QMB line and then at what the Part B premium costs you every month. For a person right at that line, the difference between qualifying and not qualifying is a meaningful share of a monthly income.

The two sentences that should stop you ruling yourself out

Medicare's own page on these programs says something you will not find on most insurance websites, and it says it twice over.

"Even if you don't think you qualify, you should still apply."

"You may still qualify for these programs in your state even if your income or resources are higher than the federal limits listed."

States are allowed to be more generous than the federal floor, and some income and some resources are not counted the way people assume. Which is why "I ran the numbers myself and I'm over" is not an answer. It is a guess about a calculation you have not been shown.

What counts as income and resources, and what does not

We are going to be careful here, because this is where confident internet advice does the most damage.

Not everything you receive is counted as income, and not everything you own is counted as a resource. The rules on what is excluded are detailed, they differ by program, and we are not going to print a list of exclusions we have not verified against the state's own published rules. Getting that wrong would send somebody away from a benefit they qualify for, which is the exact failure this page exists to prevent.

What we will say plainly:

• Your house is treated differently from cash. Do not assume owning a home puts you out.
• A car is treated differently from cash.
• Some income is not counted at all, and some is counted only in part.
• The only way to get a real answer is an application, because the application is where the counting rules actually get applied to your facts.

So how do you find out

The honest answer is that you apply, and you let the state do the arithmetic.

• Health First Colorado takes applications online at co.gov/peak, which the state describes as "the fastest way to apply"; by phone on 1-800-221-3943, State Relay 711, Monday to Friday 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.; by post; and in person at your county office or a local application assistance site.
• Medicare Savings Programs are applied for through the state as well — Medicare's wording is "You'll apply for Medicare Savings Programs through your state."
• Extra Help is Social Security's, at 1-800-772-1213, TTY 1-800-325-0778, or online.

We have written the order to do these in, and what to have in front of you, in how to apply for Medicare and Medicaid together in Colorado.

If you are not sure any of this describes you

Two quick tests that catch most people.

Are you paying the Part B premium out of your Social Security check? If yes, and money is tight, the Medicare Savings Programs are worth an application. That premium coming off the deduction is the most common first win.

Have you been paying anything at the pharmacy counter? With full Medicaid, Medicare says you "automatically" get Extra Help. If you have both and you are still paying meaningful amounts for drugs, something is not set up the way it should be, and that is worth someone looking at.

Why a pharmacy-founded agency writes this one

Haven Health Plans was started by the pharmacists at Good Day Pharmacy, which operates a network of local community pharmacies across Colorado, Wyoming and Nebraska. The counter is where you see it: the same prescription, two people, wildly different prices, and one of them qualifies for help nobody has ever mentioned to them.

We do not pick plans around pharmacies. A recommendation rests on your medication list, your doctors and your budget.

There is no charge for a review and no commission in any of the programs above. If the numbers in this article are anywhere near your situation, the next step is an application, not more reading.