[Hilary]

On February 17, 2009, President Obama signed into law the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009, which contains a number of provisions related to health and benefits for people with limited incomes that will affect seniors and younger adults with disabilities. Our March training session will focus on these provisions and how they will affect your clients.

National Center for Benefits Outreach and Enrollment Flyers for Your Clients

General consumer flyer

Flyer for your clients who live in residential facilities, such as nursing homes, assisted living facilities, or board and care homes.

Follow Up Questions and Answers

View the follow up questions and answers on ARRA

National Legal Resource Center Webinar

Webinar held on April 22, 2009

The full text of ARRA

Here is the text of the ARRA statute

Additional ARRA Resources

One-Time Payments

View the ARRA provisions on the one-time payments here.

See the Social Security Administration pamphlet on the one-time payments here.

COBRA Premium Subsidy

View the ARRA provisions on the COBRA premium subsidy here.

Here is the Department of Labor model general COBRA notice.

Here is the Department of Labor COBRA election extension notice -for employers or COBRA administrators to send to eligible people who now want to elect COBRA with the premium subsidy.

ARRA Unemployment Insurance Extensions

Here are the ARRA provisions on unemployment insurance benefits.

ARRA Nutrition Program Support

Here are Q & A from the Food and Nutition Service

Medicaid - Federal Medicaid Assisstance Percentage (FMAP)

Read the CMS Memorandum and FAQs on the ARRA increases to FMAP.

[mwilmot]

Slide 11 states that the one time $250 payment won't count as income for federal, state or local benefits. Cheri Arnott (Assoc Comm for SSA's Office of External Affairs) stated in early March 2009 that if any of the payment was saved, it would also be excluded as a resource for nine months without needing to be held in a separate account. Effectively, this raises the asset limit for Medicaid by $250 until around March 2010.

Since CMS has not issued a Dear State Medicaid Director letter with instructions about disregarding the payment as an asset, I'm wondering what y'all might have heard on this issue.

Thanks,
Marshall Wilmot
Social Service Coordinators

[Hilary]

Hi Marshall and Everyone,

The one-time payments are excluded from being counted as income in the month received for any entitlement benefit funded in whole or in part by federal monies. Thereafter, the proceeds of the payment are likewise excluded for the next 9 months after the monrth of receipt. Since the one-time payments are expected to be delivered in May 2009, that means that they do not count as income in May, nor as an asset if retained through February 2010. This should give all benefits counmselors sufficient time to assist clients with seeing to it that any of the $250 any client retains does not kick them over relevant assets limits in or around March 2010.

The exclusions are found in ARRA itself and you can take a look at the specific legal provisions in ARRA right here.

[equinn]

Sorry I was not able to sit in on the presentation. If someone is in a nursing home, and their Social Security (not SSI) is going to directly to the home to pay for their care, does the $250 go into their PNA?

Thanks,

Elizabeth

[Hilary]

The one-time payment belongs to the resident and if the facility is acting as the responsible party, the facility must use that money as the resident wishes; the facility may NOT pay itself.

[kpatrick]

How will the government know if the $250 has been retained past May 2009 if a client normally carries a bank balance of more than $250, and has money flowing into and out of the bank account regularly? If a client is over the asset limit of a particular program by less than $250, can we all (government included)assume the person retained the $250? It would be great to be able to interpret this part of the provision in the best interests of the client.
Karin P.

[bware]

heard there was a way that individuals could still apply for 2008 amount? how??? thanks