This is the summary version of a report that documents four experiments exploring if AI can be used to expedite the translation of SNAP and Medicaid policies into software code for implementation in public benefits eligibility and enrollment systems under a Rules as Code approach.
This introductory guide explains the core concepts of digital identity and how they apply to public benefits programs. This guide is the first part of a suite of voluntary resources from the BalanceID Project: Enabling Secure Access and Managing Risk in SNAP and Medicaid.
Practitioner Picks is a new quarterly series designed to add fresh resources to the Digital Government Hub’s library, helping people improve government digital service delivery. Each issue spotlights resources chosen by practitioners in a specific service delivery area along with their insights on why these picks are valuable additions to the Hub. In this edition, our contributors round up resources to help bring housing services into the digital age.
Building on our February 2022 report Benefit Eligibility Rules as Code: Reducing the Gap Between Policy and Service Delivery for the Safety Net, the Beeck Center’s Digital Benefits Network (DBN) recently held a convening to share progress and potential in digitizing benefits eligibility and to begin addressing how a national approach could be started.
Digitizing public benefits policy will make the biggest impact for administrators and Americans, but only if it happens at the highest level of government.
Building on our February 2022 report Benefit Eligibility Rules as Code: Reducing the Gap Between Policy and Service Delivery for the Safety Net, the Beeck Center’s Digital Benefits Network (DBN) hosted Rules as Code Demo Day on June 28, 2022 where there were eight demonstrations of projects and code followed by a collaborative problem solving session on how to continue advancing rules as code for the U.S. social safety net.
MITRE’s Joe Ditre and Frank Ruscil demoed the code for the Comprehensive Careers and Supports for Households (C-CASH) at Rules as Code Demo Day. The MITRE team expanded the accessibility of the Policy Rules Database and the Cost-of-Living Database (the prior demo) by creating a web service API and a front-end Window’s application called C-CASH Analytic Tool (CAT). CAT provides a more scalable, flexible, and portable functionality which allows end-users to generate various households to run eligibility scenarios across different U.S. counties and states. They are currently working to create a national data hub and analytics tool, starting with utilizing U.S. Census data and populating the data warehouse by pushing large amounts of data through the PRD.
Jennifer Pahlka, Deputy CTO in President Obama’s Administration and author, shares her new book, Recoding America on how government must be equipped for digital delivery in order to meet ambitious policy goals. This video was recorded at the Digital Benefits Conference (BenCon) at Georgetown University on June 14, 2023.