HHS and Intuit Release App to Fight Poverty Nationwide
October 13 2016 - 11:57AM
Business Wire
Federal Government to host Intuit Benefit
Assist as a free, open source Tool to Help More Americans
Approximately one in six Americans do not have enough money for
food or other essential needs and they often miss out on
income-based government benefits such as Supplemental Nutrition
Assistance Program (SNAP)/Food Stamps or free mobile phone service.
To make it easier for Americans to determine eligibility and apply
for these benefits, Intuit Inc. (Nasdaq: INTU), through a
collaboration with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services
at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and New
York City Council Member Ben Kallos, is releasing to the Federal
Government its Benefit Assist software as free, open source code on
GitHub with a demonstration. Now anyone, whether state government,
non-profit or a developer, can freely use, share and improve upon
Benefit Assist to help Americans find and use these valuable
benefits.
States will be able to save money using Benefit Assist to
collectively build and improve on the software to reduce overhead,
potentially saving our nation billions.
“Helping Americans in need can be as simple as using the tax
information government already has to provide the benefits to lift
them out of poverty. As open source code, Intuit’s Benefit Assist
will now be available to help every American,” said New York City
Council Member Ben Kallos. “Intuit has gifted this nation a new
tool to help those in need and HHS will be getting it out there to
those who need it most.”
Intuit launched Benefit Assist in 2015, offering 30 million
Americans who file taxes with TurboTax an opportunity to determine
if they are eligible for government benefits such as SNAP. In 2016,
Benefit Assist was expanded to include Federal Communications
Commissions’ Lifeline program, which offers discounts on phone
service and soon will also offer discounts on broadband
service.
“Intuit is committed to improving the financial
lives of every American. We created Benefit Assist as one way
to advance economic empowerment and inclusion –
helping people find and use the benefits available
to them,” said Bernie McKay, senior vice president of
Corporate Affairs at Intuit. “It’s a privilege to share Benefit
Assist with state governments, non-profits and other companies that
are equally passionate and committed to want to improving the
financial lives of millions.”
The Federal Government has already laid the groundwork to
streamline access to nutrition, home energy, cash assistance, and
other human service benefits necessary to stay healthy by
integrating eligibility and enrollment with Medicaid and CHIP at
the state-level through the Affordable Care Act and other
executive-branch actions. Enhanced federal funding is available
through 2018 for each state to integrate, interoperate, and improve
the delivery of federally assisted benefits to their residents by
leveraging information sharing across health and human service
agencies to automatically recertify or provide benefits.
To expand access to government human service benefits and in
partnership with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s State
Health Reform Assistance Network, CMS and the HHS Idea Lab have
developed a free and open source tool that states can use to
facilitate Modified Adjusted Gross Income (MAGI) eligibility
determination for Medicaid and CHIP called “MAGI in the Cloud,”
freely available on GitHub. The free and open source code is now
operated and maintained by the New England State Consortium Systems
Organization (NESCO) and in use by the District of Columbia, New
Jersey, North Dakota and Tennessee. The Benefit Assist tool’s
source code will be freely available at
https://github.com/CMSgov/BenefitAssist with a demonstration
available at http://benefitassist.info.
New York City Council Member Ben Kallos has introduced
“automatic benefits” legislation, slated for a winter hearing in
the Committee on General Welfare. The legislation, as amended,
requires city agencies to notify residents applying for or
receiving any human services benefits about all the human service
benefits for which they qualify automatically with applications or
renewals pre-filled using information the municipal government
already has to reduce bureaucracy and improve access. Following
introduction Kallos collaborated on a memorandum “Automatic
Benefits: Using Government Data to Deliver Better Citizen Services
for Less,” with Governance Lab at New York University, Stewards of
Change, and Robin Hood Foundation to summarize legal and regulatory
frameworks for moving forward. The release of the “Benefit Assist”
coding tool developed by Intuit’s TurboTax as free and open source
provides necessary technology infrastructure to build upon for
providing human service benefits using tax information.
“Fewer barriers, greater outreach, and creative solutions –
those have been the principles driving our reform at the city
level," said Council Member Stephen Levin, Chair of the General
Welfare Committee. "This bill hits all three marks. We are better
situated than ever before to take advantage of technology to make
sure individuals get the resources they need. Staff resources are
better spent directly improving the lives of those less fortunate,
not navigating a labyrinth of federal, state, and local programs. I
applaud this initiative, and look forward to future public-private
collaborations that ensure no one is left behind.”
“We can restore faith in a government that works by providing
the benefits people need more easily and efficiency. Building the
technology infrastructure and releasing it freely to the public and
private sectors so that they can make 'automatic benefits' a
reality will help to reduce both hunger and poverty in practice,”
said Beth Simone Noveck, former Director of the White House Open
Government Initiative and Co-Founder of the Governance Lab (GovLab)
at New York University (NYU).
“Technologies like Automatic Benefits and Benefit Assist hit the
bull's-eye for improving information sharing across health and
human service programs. These are goals that
organizations have been struggling to accomplish for decades.
This approach highlights the innovative drive which is at the core
of national and local efforts to reduce the complexity of applying
for benefits by the most at risk populations when they are
needed most. Tools like these can be adopted and
used across program silos and jurisdictional boundaries to
provide holistic, person-centric care at reduced cost,” said
Daniel Stein, co-founder of Stewards of Change.
About Intuit Inc.
Intuit Inc. creates business and financial management solutions
that simplify the business of life for small businesses, consumers
and accounting professionals.
Its flagship products and services
include QuickBooks® and TurboTax®, which make it
easier to manage small businesses and tax preparation and
filing. Mint provides a fresh, easy and intelligent way
for people to manage their money, while Intuit's
ProConnect brand portfolio includes ProConnect
Online, ProSeries® and Lacerte®, the company's leading
tax preparation offerings for professional accountants.
Founded in 1983, Intuit had revenue of $4.7 billion in its
fiscal year 2016. The company has approximately 7,900 employees
with major offices in the United States, Canada,
the United Kingdom, India, Australia and other
locations. More information can be found
at www.intuit.com.
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version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20161013006185/en/
New York City CouncilJosh Jamieson,
516-369-2921press@benkallos.comorIntuitJulie Miller,
858-215-8469julie_miller@intuit.com
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