Memorandum: Automatic Benefits: Using Government Data to Deliver Better Citizen Services for Less
Inspiration
“I want us to ask ourselves every day, how are we using technology to make a real difference in people’s lives.” — President Barack Obama.
Executive Summary
We have the opportunity to help state and local governments dramatically improve the services they provide to citizens while saving money, if it acts to create and support implementation of the policy framework to enable “automatic benefits.” Accomplishing these goals is now possible due to (1) the significant advancements in technology and responsible information sharing, and (2) leveraging open government data, to make data held by government reusable and accomplish the following priorities:
- Universal Application - qualifies citizens for all the human services to which they are entitled based on the completion of a single form.
- Automatic Renewal – renews people for services rather than depending upon them to reapply.
- Automatic Benefits - use open government data (IRS, SSA, Human Services, etc.) to means test eligibility and automate the process of determination in order to deliver services for which people are eligible automatically.
We can advance automatic benefits at the federal, state and local level and create a lasting legacy for more open and effective government by:
1. Challenge the States to Use Existing Funding - The Federal government can lead the states by publicly challenging governors to use Affordable Care Act funding available until 2018 to reduce bureaucracy and waste by removing unnecessary paper work and rules in order to provide human service benefits to those who need them.
2. Integrate Automatic Benefits into Healthcare Exchanges - Upgrade HealthCare.gov so that applicants for health insurance are also screened, qualified and awarded all the other human services citizens qualify for in order to give them the comprehensive care they need to stay healthy.
3. Challenge the Private and Non-Profit Sector - Issue a challenge to states and locals to make the business rules underlying benefits decisions freely available as open data and invite the private and non-profit sector to innovate in delivery of government benefits, including by creating new kinds of eligibility apps.
4. Super Waiver – seeking a blanket waiver of any bureaucratic rules, identified below, that stand in the way of granting benefits to people who need them and following the framework laid out by automatic benefits legislation introduced in New York City.
President Obama has already laid the groundwork for “automatic benefits” through the Affordable Care Act, Executive Order 13563, Executive Memorandum, waivers, guidance and funding for each state to use integration and interoperability to improve delivery of federally-assisted human service benefits to their residents by leveraging information sharing across human service agencies to automatically recertify or provide benefits. Across the nation, states including California, Louisiana, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and New York have begun to implement one stop websites for multi-benefit screening and application, online and mobile phone apps for self-service case management and updates, eligibility systems and business rule engines (BREs), electronic evidence imaging, and electronic data matching to provide benefits automatically.
Automatic benefits have the advantage of decreasing interaction with bureaucracy and making government more efficient, effective, and humane. But without intervention, a handful of states may build automatic benefits with governors claiming credit individually, but the vast majority will miss the 2018 deadline, leaving much of America without the benefits they need.
