Shriver Center: June 2007

Medicaid Citizenship Documentation Requirement Has Devastating Effects, According to George Washington University Study

2007-07-31T20:58:22Z

The citizenship documentation requirement for recipients of Medicaid has now caused enormous harm to America’s Medicaid population. The requirement has resulted in delays and outright denials of coverage for U.S. citizens applying for Medicaid and the loss of Medicaid coverage for U.S. citizens enrolled in the program.

These are the findings of a study based on a recent nationwide survey of federally qualified health centers conducted by the George Washington University’s School of Public Health and Health Services. According to the study, entitled An Initial Assessment of the Effects of Medicaid Documentation Requirements on Health Centers and Their Patients, more than 90 percent of all health centers report increased enrollment difficulties with Medicaid, and “more than one-third report that they have had to increase the amount of staff time available to assist patients with their applications.” This has severely limited Medicaid beneficiaries’ access to quality, efficient medical care, the study says.

The study conservatively estimates that between 2.2 percent and 6.7 percent of the Medicaid population (between 105,100 and 319,500 Medicaid beneficiaries) will lose their health coverage as a direct result of the citizenship documentation requirement. The study also outlines how, as a result of the citizenship documentation requirement, the number of uninsured citizens and the amount of uncompensated care provided by hospitals and other health care providers to low-income individuals will balloon.

The citizenship documentation requirement came about after President Bush in February 2006 signed into law the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005—a scheme to save $40 billion over five years from mandatory spending programs. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services instituted a new regulation requiring most Medicaid applicants and recipients who claim to be U.S. citizens to prove their citizenship with passports, birth certificates, and other special documents or lose their public health coverage.

The study is available online here. A webcast about the study hosted by the George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services is available online at the Kaiser Family Foundation’s website, here.

Foreclosures Affecting Many Who Thought Themselves Invulnerable

2007-07-31T20:58:38Z

Foreclosures continue to affect many families throughout the United States. More and more foreclosures are occurring even in wealthier neighborhoods such as Lincoln Park in Chicago. The Center for Responsible Lending estimates that one in every five subprime loans made during 2005 and 2006 will end with the borrowers losing their home through foreclosure—the highest foreclosure rate ever seen in the modern mortgage market.

State Rep. Daniel Burke has introduced legislation that would combat predatory lending. The Predatory Home Loan Act (House Bill 1478) would prohibit prepayment penalties, flipping of loans, and lender financing of credit insurance and would limit high-cost loans. The bill would bar loans unless the lender reasonably believed that the borrower could make scheduled payments on the loan. The bill would allow borrowers to obtain damages for any violations of the legislation.

The bill has a long way to go before becoming law; the House Rules Committee has not even passed it. Alone, the bill will not fix the problems that many are facing. Brokers and brokerage houses must become regulated to prevent them from offering no-documentation loans and to have them show the increased amount that borrowers have to pay on adjustable-rate mortgage loans after their teaser rate is gone. Classes for first-time homebuyers should become the norm to make sure that such buyers have all information and know all alternatives before they receive their loans.

For more information, contact Dory Rand or Patrick Hain.

Advocates Find New Way To Preserve Subsidized Housing

2007-07-31T20:58:46Z

Attorneys from the Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law last fall spearheaded a class action lawsuit against the Moody Bible Institute (MBI) to challenge the school’s unlawful conversion of subsidized senior housing into student dormitories. Katherine E. Walz of the Shriver Center was joined by Jack Cann of the Minneapolis Housing Preservation Project and pro bono attorneys Max Stein, James Rolfes, and Casey Westover of Sachnoff & Weaver Ltd. Together they filed suit on behalf of current residents, applicants on the waiting list, and the Jane Addams Senior Caucus (JASC), a 30-year-old Chicago nonprofit organization.

The threatened property, Morningside I, is located just west of Chicago’s Magnificent Mile and originally provided 201 units of affordable housing for low-income seniors. Because Morningside is a project-based Section 8 property, government subsidies were attached to Morningside’s units rather than to the tenants. The Section 8 subsidy stays with the property when tenants move out so that affordable units would be available for future residents.

In 1993 MBI purchased Morningside and initially followed its obligations under the Section 8 contract. But since the late 1990s, after receiving approval from the Illinois Housing Development Authority (IHDA), MBI instead gradually converted the property into a student dormitory. Around the time the lawsuit was filed, about 160 students and their spouses resided at Morningside, where they enjoyed Internet access in well-maintained rooms. Disabled and elderly residents complained that they were denied similar upgrades in their rooms and even parking spaces in the building’s lot, forcing them to walk across four-lane streets to reach their homes. Eligible applicants were told that the building was no longer intended for disabled and elderly residents.

Shortly after the lawsuit was initiated, the parties, IHDA, and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) entered into settlement discussions. Those talks brought forth an innovative settlement agreement which will preserve all 201 units of subsidized housing, extend the Section 8 contract for several more years, and allow MBI to use a portion of the property to house students. Pursuant to Section 8(bb) of the U.S. Housing Act, HUD will permit MBI to split the Section 8 contract into two contracts. The second contract, comprising a little over half of the units, will be transferred to Maple Pointe Apartments, a senior-designated Low-Income Housing Tax Credit apartment complex located just down the street. Residents who elect to remain at Morningside are guaranteed project-basing until 2018. Residents who volunteer to move to Maple Pointe will have project-based Section 8 housing until 2033. This agreement should allow other low-income seniors access to affordable housing for decades to come.
In this pioneering agreement, the parties successfully used a new approach to housing preservation. Morningside is one of the first cases in which advocates were able to persuade HUD to split a Section 8 contract to maintain the same number of subsidized units. As affordable housing becomes ever more scarce, we must uncover new ways of saving these vital units. Morningside thus opens up important possibilities for preserving affordable housing, both in Illinois and nationwide.

This article was also published in the 2007 edition of Inside Housing.

Ensuring Success in School Act (ESSA) Passes Both Illinois Houses

2007-07-31T20:58:56Z

The Ensuring Success in School Act (ESSA) (House Bill 1330), an initiative of both the Women’s Law and Policy Project of the Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law and its collaborators across Illinois, has been a multiyear effort to meet the educational needs of elementary and secondary students who are parents, expectant parents, or victims of domestic or sexual violence. Extensive advocacy in Springfield proved effective in producing what is now an agreed-upon bill. The bill passed both the Illinois Senate and the House and will be sent to Gov. Rod Blagojevich for his signature.

The focus of the legislation is to ensure that children and youths who are parents, expectant parents, or the victims of domestic or sexual violence stay in school, stay safe while in school, and complete their education.

With Senate amendments to the original bill, ESSA now has two main provisions. The first creates the Ensuring Success in School Task Force to develop policies, procedures, and protocols to be implemented by school districts. The task force will accomplish the following:

·    Conduct a thorough examination of the barriers to school attendance, safety, and completion of school.
·    Conduct discovery (relevant research, best practices, and policy, including expert testimony) in Illinois and elsewhere.
·    Conduct meetings and hearings around the state to ensure maximum participation by local schools and advocates as well as students and their parents.
·    Report to the Illinois General Assembly on findings, recommendations, and an implementation plan.
The second provision requires a biannual in-service training for school personnel on the needs of students who are expectant or parenting youths or victims of domestic or sexual violence.

The ESSA Task Force will afford us a critical opportunity to collect data, narratives, and model policies and determine the policies, procedures, and protocols to be implemented in Illinois elementary and secondary schools and to inform future legislation. The Women’s Law and Policy Project has already assembled state and national-level coalitions of researchers, clinicians, advocates, and experts on pregnancy and parenting and on domestic and sexual violence among children and youth. The coalitions speak to the depth and breadth of the work on the ground to update obsolete school policies, create new benchmarks for progress, and ensure success in school. If you would like to join the Illinois ESSA Coalition so that you may contribute to and keep informed of the progress of the ESSA Task Force, contact Wendy Pollack.

Advocates Across the Country Call in for Asset-Limit Reform Training

2007-07-31T20:59:04Z

Nearly 40 advocates, attorneys, and funders from 18 states participated in a conference call training on reforming state asset limits hosted by the Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law on May 23. The training entitled “It’s About Getting Ahead: Strategies and Options for Eliminating State Asset Limits” was based on a March–April 2007 CLEARINGHOUSE REVIEW article by Dory Rand, the Shriver Center’s supervising attorney for community investment.

Rand gave a brief overview of the need for asset-limit reform and key approaches, including legislative and administrative advocacy to eliminate asset limits, raise limits, or exempt asset categories or all three. Using examples from Illinois and California, she emphasized the importance of marshaling facts and arguments to answer the usual questions and objections, such as “Will the state appear soft on welfare?” and “Will caseloads/costs increase?”

Paul Fraunholtz and Beth Kowalczyk of the Ohio Department of Jobs and Family Services shared information on how Ohio became the first state to eliminate asset limits in the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program and how Ohio aligned Food Stamp Program asset tests with TANF as part of a broader “work first” and program simplification effort that had the backing of staunch conservatives.

Stacy Dean of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities described how to use categorical eligibility rules, alignment with TANF rules, and other methods to eliminate asset limits, exempt assets, and raise asset limits in the Food Stamp Program and asset bills pending in Congress. Dean also described how to discus asset-limit reform as part of the government’s broader efforts to promote savings. For example, since the federal government provides favorable tax treatment to Individual Retirement Accounts (IRAs) to encourage saving for retirement, we should exempt IRAs from asset tests.

Rourke O’Brien of the New America Foundation advised that a new federal asset bill was in the works and would raise the asset limit in the Food Stamp Program, index it to inflation, and exempt all retirement and education savings accounts and vehicles. The bill would eliminate the asset test in the Supplemental Security Income program and State Children’s Health Insurance Program and offer high-performance bonuses to states that eliminate the asset test in TANF.

The panelists fielded audience questions and encouraged participants to share strategies and lessons learned. A transcript of the call is available here under Two Cents Plus Interest. “We hope that participants will use this information to take action to reform asset limits in their home states and to support asset-limit reform at the federal level,” said Rand, who will participate as a faculty member on asset limits at CFED’s forthcoming Assets and Opportunity Institute in September.

For more information, contact Dory Rand, 312.368.2007.

Auto-IRAs Would Help Employees Save for Retirement

2007-07-31T20:59:13Z

More than half of the workforce in America lacks access to an employer-sponsored retirement savings plan. Legislation to require employers who do not provide qualified retirement plans to assist their employees in saving for retirement was introduced in the U.S. Congress recently. Meanwhile, some states are developing plans to expand retirement savings opportunities at the state level.

The Automatic IRA Act of 2007 (S. 1141 and H.R. 2167) requires employers to use automatic enrollment and payroll deductions to help employees save in Individual Retirement Accounts (IRAs). Lead sponsors of the Auto-IRA Act include Senators Jeff Bingaman (D-NM) and Gordon Smith (R-OR) and Representatives Richard Neal (D-MA) and Phil English (R-PA).

The Auto-IRA law would apply to employers in business for more than two years and with more than ten employees. Participating employers would receive a temporary tax credit of $25 per enrolled employee to establish automatic IRAs. Employees may opt out of participation. Under federal law, employees may contribute up to $4,000 per year in IRAs (people older than 50 may contribute more), but, unlike 401k or 403b plans, employers are not allowed to match employee contributions to IRAs.

Washington State recently approved a $450,000 appropriation for its Department of Retirement Systems to develop a plan to offer a universal voluntary retirement accounts program for private-sector employees and seek qualification from the Internal Revenue Service to operate the plan on a tax-preferred basis. Some of the features of the Washington voluntary retirement accounts plan are a defined contribution plan with a limited, preselected menu of investment options; administration by the Department of Retirement Systems; investment oversight by the state investment board; tax-deferred payroll deductions; retirement account portability between jobs; and a two-tiered system with workplace-based individual retirement accounts open to all workers and a deferred compensation 401k-type program or simple IRA-type program open to all employers who choose to participate for their employees.

Proponents hope that these “auto-IRAs” will encourage low-income workers to build retirement assets. These IRAs may also be used for first-time homeownership or postsecondary education.

For more information, contact Dory Rand, 312.368.2007.

Update on Illinois Covered

2007-07-31T20:59:22Z

In a test vote on May 31, the Illinois Senate fell one vote short of the 30 votes needed to pass Senate Bill 5, Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s health-care-for-all proposal, Illinois Covered. Eight Democratic senators and all Republican senators either voted against the bill or voted “present,” which has the same effect as voting against the bill. The eight Democratic senators who voted against or present were Senators Michael Bond, Mike Frerichs, Linda Holmes, Mike Jacobs, Dan Kotowski, Antonio Muñoz, John M. Sullivan, and Louis S. Viverito.

May 31 was an important deadline since the Illinois Constitution requires that any bill passed after May 31 may not become effective before June 1 of the next calendar year unless the General Assembly provides for an earlier effective date by a three-fifths vote of each house. Thus, if one senator switches his or her vote and Senate Bill 5 passes the Senate by a simple majority of 30 votes and then passes the House, the bill would not take effect until June 1, 2008. Seven senators would have to switch their votes to obtain the three-fifths majority required for an earlier effective date.

The fight for affordable, quality, and comprehensive health care for all Illinoisans is far from over. Governor Blagojevich and Senate Pres. Emil Jones continue to place Illinois Covered at the top of their legislative agendas. And it is not only Illinois’s political leaders who want to see change: recent poll results show that health care is the top concern of Illinois residents and businesses. According to a recent Northern Illinois University policy survey, 76 percent of Illinoisans believe that the health care system in the United States is either in a state of crisis or experiencing major problems. According to Citizen Action Illinois, 85 percent of Illinois residents describe health care as being “too expensive and unaffordable,” and something they consider to be an “extremely serious problem.” Nationally, according to Families USA, 63 percent of Americans say universal health insurance is necessary even if it requires tax increases.

Achieving affordable, quality, and comprehensive health care for all Illinoisans requires a great deal of public support. Now more than ever, your state senators and representatives need to hear from you that health care reform is a top priority for you. Particular emphasis should be placed on the eight Democratic senators who do not yet support Senate Bill 5.

To learn more about Illinois Covered and how to become involved, click here.

A Father’s Day Present We Should All Accept

2007-07-31T20:59:31Z

All of us who are fathers want to be as competent and responsible as everyone else wants us to be. It is certainly reasonable for society to expect every father to measure up. It is not reasonable for society to block fathers trying hard to do what is right. Instead we should do all that we can to support responsible fatherhood.

In new legislation filed just before Father’s Day 2007, Senators Evan Bayh (D-IN) and Barack Obama (D-IL) propose policy improvements and incentives involving tax policy, child support, criminal records, and jobs. The Responsible Fatherhood and Healthy Families Act contains initiatives attacking one of the foremost problems in fathering—generating income to support a family.

The bill has innovative proposals to help fathers become employed and earn family-sustaining wages. It would establish the first dedicated source of federal funds for Transitional Jobs. An employment strategy that cuts through the complex reasons for a person’s chronic unemployment, the Transitional Jobs program starts with the desired outcome—employment. The strategy combines a temporary subsidized job with mentoring and case-managed employment and social services to provide income and teach ways to cope with and rise above employment barriers that many chronically unemployed fathers face. Fathers in these programs quickly make the transition into unsubsidized work.

The bill also would dedicate support for “bridge” programs—an employment and training strategy aimed at equipping low-income fathers who are already consistently employed in low-wage work with the skills and credentials to qualify for careers and family-sustaining wages. Bridge programs combine employers who have needs for skilled employees with training providers who can deliver programs aimed precisely at those jobs. The bill seeds those relationships with funds for training and employment.

With the Responsible Fatherhood and Healthy Families Act, Senators Bayh and Obama offer a Father’s Day present long overdue. We should accept it as soon as possible.

America's Top Issue and the Illinois Press Goes Missing

2007-07-31T20:59:48Z

The Illinois General Assembly session, now in overtime, might best be characterized with a nod to Alice’s white rabbit from Wonderland, “curiouser and curiouser.” Take your pick of ironies and oddities. But one of the top curiosities of the session is the way that the press has completely ignored the governor’s historic health care plan, Illinois Covered. In its obsession with personalities, the press has utterly failed to cover one of the top public policy issues in America.

Illinois Covered is a carefully crafted plan with broad support among national experts. It is derived directly from the research and consensus built by a wide array of health care stakeholders who served on the Illinois Adequate Health Care Task Force. It would offer affordable coverage to the one and a half million Illinoisans who are uninsured. It would offer all of us who already have insurance a desperately needed fallback—a guaranteed-issue, affordable policy with decent coverage in the event our employers drop coverage or we lose coverage some other way. This possibility, a nightmare in every household, would be laid to rest.

The plan would bring long-awaited stability and control to the health insurance market. All of us who already have insurance, and all of our employers who support the plan, would find new predictability and moderation in the insurance market. The plan would be a tremendous gain for everyone in the state, not just the uninsured.

All in all, this is a major story, but the press did not cover it. There has been no analysis of the plan itself and no coverage of the issue in its many aspects. No series of articles on people who need insurance, employers who pay too much for it, other employers who gain a competitive advantage by shifting responsibility onto the taxpayers, middle-class people who are suddenly uninsured, health care bankruptcies. Everyone has a relative or neighbor who has fought off a disease but lost insurance when away from work and now cannot find a new job or maintain needed medications or treatment because of the insurance problem. But there have been no such stories in the press. No reporter has figured out the direct connection between Illinois Covered’s insuring the uninsured and the resulting solution to the Cook County health system budget crisis or questioned why Cook County government has not shown up to support Illinois Covered but instead continues to cut needed services. There have been no polling and no deep analysis of what voters want and are willing to pay for.

The health care system in this country is a bona fide crisis. It consistently polls as a top concern of huge majorities of voters. Around the kitchen tables of virtually every home at any income level it causes consternation or despair. People in large numbers do not yet appreciate how government can help, and they have been indoctrinated with cynicism on the problem due to past fights over it. Thus they do not yet appreciate that a respectable and credible proposal such as Illinois Covered is a real and substantial answer to their worries. If they did, most would support paying for it.

Straight news coverage of the problems of the health care system, of the details of how Illinois Covered would deal with those problems, and of the opposing arguments was not only demanded by the importance and urgency of the problem but also essential to the best possible outcome.

The Illinois press has failed to cover the issue as news, and as a result it has not prompted a vigorous debate of Illinois Covered itself or of the health crisis in general. Politics is an interesting spectator sport, and there are lots of personalized axes to grind in Springfield. This perhaps explains the coverage we have seen. But whatever the reason, the press has dropped the ball on Illinois Covered and on the health coverage crisis.

Shriver Center Position Statement:

2007-07-31T21:00:23Z

S.1348 Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2007

The comprehensive immigration bill under consideration in the Senate is a first step on a difficult path of reform. Unfortunately, the Senate bill falls short of each of our criteria for immigration reform and includes many other poorly conceived provisions. We believe the process should proceed, but we urge the Senate and House to improve this bill. Toward that end, we highlight some provisions that must be addressed.

The Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law released a policy statement on immigration reform last year in which we pledged to support comprehensive reform of our immigration laws that:

·    promotes family reunification.
·    creates a reasonable path to legalization for hard-working undocumented immigrants.
·    does not restrict or eliminate judicial review, expand summary detention and removal, or otherwise deny immigrants the due process of law.

The Senate bill does not promote family reunification. Indeed, it does just the opposite, jettisoning our decades-old family-based immigration system that allows American citizens and immigrants to bring close family members here, and replacing it with a new “merits-based” points system designed to favor high-skilled, English speaking people.

The Senate bill does not create a reasonable path to legalization for hard-working undocumented immigrants. Rather, undocumented immigrants would have to wait at least eight to thirteen years before they could adjust to lawful permanent resident status, and could be deported if they fail to maintain continuous full-time employment or school attendance during that time. Further, the head of household would be required to return to their country of origin to apply for legalization, pay fines of over $8500, and could not petition for their spouses and minor children who live abroad to join them here while they are waiting.

The Senate bill includes some of the same provisions that compromise the due process rights of immigrants as were included in the infamous Sensenbrenner legislation introduced last year.

The Senate bill creates a guest worker program that would produce a permanent underclass of uneducated, poorly paid, temporary workers that would depress wages and working conditions for American workers. These guest workers would be required to return to their home countries for one year after every two years worked and would have no possibility of ever becoming permanent residents. In short, the proposed guest worker program is unfair, unworkable and unrealistic and will lead to the same widespread flaunting of the law as occurs today.

The Senate bill also includes a provision that would cause millions of workers to live their retirement years in deep poverty, despite the hard-earned taxes they have paid, by requiring immigrants who have worked and paid into the Social Security system for years to forfeit all of the contributions they have made before obtaining a newly issued social security number.

The status quo, on the other hand, is intolerable. Families are broken up by continuing raids and other enforcement, and people die in the desert because there is no legal way for them to enter the country. People who have lived here productively for years must live in the shadows, with no way to become citizens. Therefore, we believe the bipartisan effort at comprehensive immigration reform that has begun in the Senate should proceed. However, the bill must improve significantly as it moves through the legislative process.

June 2007 Poverty Action Report

2007-07-31T20:39:48Z

.pdf version of the June 2007 Poverty Action Report