Advancing Strategies to Align Programs (ASAP) is an advocacy initiative to bolster enrollment in Medicaid and SNAP through program alignment and administrative simplifications. ASAP built on lessons learned from the Work Support Strategies (WSS) initiative and new opportunities created by the Affordable Care Act (ACA).

Increasing enrollment will ensure people with low incomes have the health insurance and nutrition support to meet their basic needs and achieve stability, allowing adults to succeed at work and promoting children’s healthy development. A significant and growing body of evidence shows that participation in work support programs improves short and long-term health, educational, and economic outcomes. Research also suggests that receiving the full package of work support benefits, rather than just a single program, can be of particular importance in helping people with low incomes stabilize their lives.

Over the first five years of the ASAP project, state advocates received support from CLASP to advocate to improve delivery systems and integration of key work support programs. In partnership with the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, CLASP provided grantees with in-depth technical assistance and sharing lessons from the project with a broader audience of advocates.

In the current phase of ASAP, CLASP is leveraging lessons learned from the state administration of benefit programs to advocate at the federal level to improve access to benefits, while also continuing to provide technical assistance to state advocates.

Former ASAP Grantees

• Children’s Advocacy Alliance (Nevada)
• Hunger Task Force (Wisconsin)
• Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law (Illinois)
• Health Equity Solutions (Connecticut)
• Connecticut Voices for Children
• Community Legal Services of Philadelphia
• Massachusetts Law Reform Institute
• New Mexico Center on Law and Poverty
• Hunger Free Colorado
• North Carolina Justice Center
• The Center for Community Solutions (Ohio)
• Three Square (Nevada)
• Neighborhood Legal Services of Los Angeles County
• Virginia Poverty Law Center

Southern Learning Community Grantees:

• Alabama Arise
• Every Texan
• Florida Policy Institute
• Kentucky Voices for Health
• Louisiana Budget Project
• Mississippi Center for Justice
• South Carolina Appleseed Legal Justice Center
• Tennessee Justice Center

Resources

• Practical Changes State Agencies Can Make to Increase Equity in Application Processes for Immigrant Families
• Improving SNAP Access for Older Adults: Lessons from Massachusetts on Breaking Down Barriers and Improving Retention
• Advocacy in the Dark: A Pennsylvania Case Study on Advocating to Improve Technology that Drives Eligibility Decisions

Using Administrative Advocacy to Improve Access to Public Benefits
These policy briefs are intended to help advocates understand the leverage points for improving the administration of Medicaid and SNAP.

Racial Equity Resources

• 1619 Project
• 1619 Podcast on health disparities
• Podcast about Linda Taylor (the so-called “welfare queen”)
• Kaiser report on health coverage by race and ethnicity

Data and Resources

• FNS State Options Report
• Medicaid and CHIP Eligibility, Enrollment, Renewal and Cost Sharing Policies 50-State Survey
• Medicaid MAGI and CHIP Application Processing Time Report
• Opportunities for States to Coordinate Medicaid and SNAP Renewals
• Reasonable Compatibility Policy Presents and Opportunity to Streamline Medicaid Determinations

Webinars and Presentations

• Webinar: Improving Medicaid Renewals
• Webcast: Increasing Benefit Access through Administrative Advocacy
• Webinar: Seamless Renewals: Using Existing Data to Renew Benefits and Prevent Coverage Gaps

Additional Resources

Work Support Strategies learned from the experiences of its demonstration states, with the goal of informing broader state and federal policies. This information is disseminated through reports, briefs, fact sheets, and webinars, which can be found on the Resources page.

• ACF/HHS Resource Guide: Interoperability Toolkit
• CMS Announcement of 90/10 funding and A-87 waiver extension
• Modernizing Benefit Systems: Opportunities and Challenges (CLASP)
• Integrating Health and Human Services Programs and Reaching Eligible Individuals under the Affordable Care Act (Urban Institute for the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation, HHS)
• Moving to 21st-Century Public Benefits: Emerging Options, Great Promise, and Key Challenges (Coalition for Access and Opportunity)
• Bridging the Divide: Leveraging New Opportunities to Integrate Health and Human Services (APHSA)
• Understanding the Rates, Causes, and Costs of Churning in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (Urban Institute for the Food and Nutrition Service, USDA)