Highlights

• Some SNAP Households Exempt from Interim Reports
• ACA is Still Law and MA Open Enrollment Continues Through January 23rd
• DDS Self-Directed Services
• MA Homelessness Up - Higher than Rest of US
• High-Need Youth Await After-School Slots

Sections

• Program Highlights
• Policy & Social Issues

Questions, comments about the newsletter? Contact Ellen Forman, 617-726-5807.

DTA has started implementing the Elderly and Disabled Simplified Application Project (EDSAP) which is a change in how DTA handles SNAP cases for older adults and persons with disabilities. It greatly reduces required paperwork and will make it easier for low-income households to get and keep SNAP.

In order to be part of EDSAP, every adult (age 18+) who is part of the SNAP household must be:

• Age 60 or older, OR
• Receiving a disability-based benefit - such as SSI, Social Security Disability, or MassHealth as disabled.

The SNAP household can include children under 18. No adult in the household can have earnings from a job to participate in EDSAP.

What does it mean to be part of EDSAP?

NO Interim Reports! EDSAP households do not need to do any Interim Reporting paperwork to keep SNAP for 3 years. Ineligible households need to complete interim reports every 6 months.

• At the end of 3 years, EDSAP households will need to recertify to keep their SNAP.
• There is NO interview required at the point of recertification – unless DTA finds information in the
• Recertification form is “questionable.”
• EDSAP households only have to tell DTA about these two changes:

1. If someone joins or leaves the households (e.g., an adult child moves in or a spouse leaves)
2. If anyone in the household starts to get earnings (regular job or self-employed)

• This information needs to be reported to DTA by the 10th day of the month following the month of the change.

How do households know if they are part of EDSAP?

On December 17, 2018, DTA moved about 87,000 households into EDSAP because they did an application,
Interim Report, or Recertification recently with DTA. DTA will be moving additional cases onto EDSAP at the
point of Recertification. All SNAP households eligible for EDSAP should be moved into EDSAP by about June
2020.

When SNAP households are moved into EDSAP, DTA will send a notice explaining EDSAP, when their 3 year
certification period ends and the reporting requirements. 

More Information

See the MLRI Handout DTA’s Elderly/Disabled Simplified Application Project- EDSAP.

The Affordable Care Act faces a new legal challenge after a federal judge in Texas ruled the law unconstitutional on this month, but "nothing changes for now," says Julie Rovner, chief Washington correspondent of Kaiser Health News. While Open Enrollment in the federal exchange and most states is now closed, Massachusetts residents can continue to enroll. People currently enrolled through the Connector who want to change plans in 2019 as well as those seeking to obtain coverage for 2019 have until December 23 for January 1 coverage or until January 23 for February 1 coverage.  Note: this is later than the deadline in most other states and as reported in much national news coverage. 

And while there will be no federal tax penalty for being uninsured in 2019, there is still an individual mandate in Massachusetts enforced through a state tax penalty.

As detailed in a recent White House statement, the Affordable Care Act remains the law.

When assisting current members, let them know that this decision does not impact their current coverage, and does not impact their coverage for next year. Remember, if they want to stay in their current plan for 2019, they need to pay their premium by Sunday, December 23.

Below are some questions and answers about the ACA and the ruling.

1. What was the Texas ruling?

U.S. District Judge Reed O'Connor ruled that the Affordable Care Act was not constitutional. O'Connor made his decision after 18 Republican state attorneys general and two GOP governors brought their case, Rovner reports. They claimed that the Supreme Court upheld the ACA in 2012 because it included an individual mandate — or a tax penalty for Americans who did not buy health insurance. After Congress repealed the individual mandate in 2017, O'Connor said the rest of the law fell apart.

2. Who might this ruling affect?

The Affordable Care Act runs for more than 1,000 pages and includes many provisions — the exchanges for individuals that are frequently political footballs — and a long list of other measures and protections designed to expand insurance coverage.

NPR's Alison Kodjak reports that the ACA expanded Medicaid, which has allowed more than 10 million people to get coverage in states that chose to expand the program. The law also protects people with pre-existing conditions and allows people up to age 26 to be covered under their parents' insurance and made significant changes to allow for generic drugs and to provide funding for Medicare.

Rovner says people should act as if the ACA is still in place, but the ruling opens a possibility for "an enormous disruption."

"It would really plunge the nation's health care system into chaos," Rovner says. "The federal government wouldn't be able to pay for Medicare because all the Medicare payments have been structured because of the Affordable Care Act."

3. What next?

Judge O'Connor did not rule the law has to be enjoined immediately. NPR's Kodjak says even the newest ACA insurance policies will go into effect until more legal action plays out in courts.

-See the full NPR story.

- Additional information from December updates: Open Enrollment, Texas messing with us & more, Health announce listserv on behalf of Vicky Pulos, Mass Law Reform Institute, December 19, 2018 and MA Health Care Training Forum email, December 18, 2018.

The Massachusetts Real Lives Law helps people with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (IDD) decide how they want to live. Certain DDS clients can choose to direct their care by enrolling in the Participant Directed Program.

The MassRealLives.org website helps people to decide which programs they feel might be best for them. Real Lives Massachusetts lists Work, Day, Home or Help programs in Massachusetts.  People can pick programs near them or agencies with programs that serve their area.

See the DDS brochure Choosing Which Service Method is Best for You  to learn more about self-determination and DDS service models or for more details download An Overview of  Self-Determination and DDS Service Models, ANNUAL REVIEW FOR ALL DDS STAFF
2017.

Excerpts from the Annual Review training:

Who Can Enroll in the Participant Directed Program?

To enroll in the Participant Directed Program, a person must:

• be eligible for DDS supports
• have an assessed need for the services to be provided
• if applicable, be prioritized for DDS services
• receive a DDS allocation
• be willing and able to work cooperatively with a Support Broker
• be responsible, working closely with a Support Broker, to manage their services and budget     

Individuals meeting the above criteria in adult services, children in the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) program, and adults in the Autism Services Division may choose the Participant Directed Program as their method of service delivery.  All participants in the Children's Autism Waiver program direct their services.

For more information contact Real Lives Massachusetts at 800-642-0249 or email info@massreallives.orgor see the website: https://massreallives.org/
-Adapted from Real Lives Massachusetts, INDEX New, December 06, 2018.

Homelessness in Massachusetts increased by 14 percent this year, according to a federal report released this month, and local advocates said the data highlight the need to quickly build more housing for the most vulnerable.

Nationally, there was a 0.3 percent increase in homelessness, caused partly by hurricanes, wildfires, and other natural events, according to the US Department of Housing and Urban Development.

In Massachusetts, overall homelessness has increased by 38 percent in the past decade, even as cities and towns take steps to address the problem.

“Part of it is getting the number of [housing] units that would be necessary to meet this count, and to understand the aggregation of homelessness,” Joe Finn, executive director of Massachusetts Housing & Shelter Alliance, a nonprofit advocacy and policy organization focused on individual homeless people. “We’ve had people who have subsidies and still have problems getting housing, particularly in Boston but more and more in the Commonwealth.”

Mayor Martin J. Walsh has made homelessness a priority during his administration. Over the past year, the city has reached out to an often overlooked demographic: youth homelessness.

Statewide, the number of homeless people rose this year to 20,068 — the highest since 2013 — according to the new report.

Massachusetts saw a 15 percent increase in the number of veterans who are experiencing homelessness.

“The city of Boston deserves a lot of credit — they have identified just about every homeless veteran and have a keen sense of who the chronic homeless are,” Finn said. “Like anything else, the housing side could use additional resources.”
There was also an 11 percent increase in the number of young adults between the ages of 18 and 24 without children experiencing homelessness in Massachusetts — the highest in the state since 2015, when the data first became available.

-See the full Boston Globe article.

Meaningful activities outside of and after the school day can go far in boosting a child's educational achievement and life outcomes. But many Massachusetts youth that need after-school and summer programs are not able to get into one.

Thousands of high-needs youth (those who are economically disadvantaged, English language learners, or special education students) in Massachusetts lack public support for after-school programs, according to a new Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center (MassBudget) report, Investment in After-School & Summer Learning in Massachusetts: Current Funding & Unmet Need.

Not all communities and families have the resources to provide enrichment activities to young people. In 2011, the highest-income families across the country were able to spend almost seven times more on out-of-school opportunities than the lowest-income families.

The MassBudget report examines federal and state funding for after-school and summer programs. In the 2016-2017 school year, public entities provided more than $207 million, after adjusting for inflation, for after-school programs. Despite these efforts, children with the greatest needs often lack opportunities to participate in such programs.

Read the full report.

-From Many Massachusetts youth await spots in after-school programs, MassBudget, December 04, 2018.