The Kaiser Family Foundation has released a brief, offering strategies for states to streamline eligibility verification systems for Medicaid, the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), and subsidies through health reform’s exchanges.  Noting that health reform will dramatically expand health coverage through these programs, the authors suggest employing “express lane” principles that use existing data already held by other government agencies.  The brief recommends establishing electronic links between health programs and other public programs, including the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), and other federal databases.

From the report:

Under the Affordable Care Act (ACA), beginning in 2014, millions of uninsured adults and children will gain eligibility for and are expected to enroll in Medicaid and coverage through new health insurance Exchanges. Many of these individuals participate in other need-based public programs for which they have already provided income and other information needed to establish eligibility. The ACA calls for states to leverage existing data sources as much as possible to develop simple and streamlined processes for establishing, verifying, and updating eligibility for Medicaid, CHIP, and subsidies for Exchange coverage. To do this, states will be required to create linkages between the health subsidy programs and public programs such as Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), and with databases held by federal agencies like the Social Security Administration, the Department of Homeland Security, and the Internal Revenue Service.  States can already use eligibility findings from other programs to enroll children in Medicaid and CHIP under the “Express Lane Eligibility” authority in federal statute.

Full report: Explaining Health Reform: Uses of Express Lane Strategies to Promote Participation in Coverage (PDF | 566.47 KB)

Kaiser Family Foundation.  (2011).  Explaining health reform: uses of express lane strategie to promote particpation in coverage.