Poor not buying new drug benefit

The poor seem to need more convincing that they'd be helped by the new Medicare prescription drug benefit that begins next month.
The Social Security Administration says it has approved just 661,000 applications for a subsidy that makes the new drug benefit much more affordable for low-income senior citizens and the disabled.
That's just a fraction of the 7 million people who are believed eligible for the subsidy.

is this not completely predictable given the fact that the benefit is designed to give windfalls of profit to insurance and pharmaceutical companies? why do people act surprised when programs that are not designed to help the poor don't help the poor?