The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has issued guidance and waiver approvals that broaden and clarify the ways in which states can use Medicaid funds to help pay for clinically appropriate, evidence-based services that address these health-related social needs (HRSN).

Criticisms of the provision ignore the realities of families’ lives. Far-fetched claims that the lookback would lead many parents with low incomes to strategically stop working defy common sense and do not withstand scrutiny.

Chair Atterbeary, Vice Chair Wilkins, and members of the House Ways and Means Committee, thank you for the opportunity to submit this testimony in favor of House Bill 1007.My name is Don Griswold....

Testimony of Michael Mazerov, Senior Fellow, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, Before the Maryland House of Delegates Ways and Means Committee

States are missing out on the opportunity to improve pregnancy-related and child health. Only 51.2 percent of eligible individuals participated in WIC in 2021, well below earlier years.

Testimony of Wesley Tharpe, Senior Advisor for State Tax Policy, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, Before the Vermont House Ways and Means Committee

It is great news that the House passed, with a strong bipartisan vote, a tax bill with a Child Tax Credit expansion that would help about 16 million children in families with low incomes. The Senate should quickly pass this important legislation.

Health coverage plays a key role in improving people’s health outcomes and quality of life. Unfortunately, many people who are immigrants remain uninsured, largely because of immigration-related restrictions to government health programs. Many states have responded to this challenge by creating affordable health coverage options for people whose immigration status bars them from enrolling in Medicaid, CHIP, and the ACA marketplace.

Chairman Whitehouse, Ranking Member Grassley, and members of the Committee, thank you for the opportunity to testify before you this morning at this important hearing.I am Peggy Bailey, Vice...

Social Security benefits play a vital role in reducing poverty in every state. Without Social Security, 22.7 million more adults and children would be below the poverty line.

Half a million or more children would be lifted above the poverty line when the proposal is fully in effect in 2025.

The bipartisan Child Tax Credit expansion in the tax bill negotiated by Senate Finance Committee Chair Ron Wyden and House Ways and Means Committee Chair Jason Smith takes an important step toward...

The bipartisan Child Tax Credit proposal released by Senator Ron Wyden and Representative Jason Smith would provide meaningful help to millions of children in families with low incomes starting in the first year.

The bipartisan Child Tax Credit compromise proposal described in press reports would be an important step forward.

Congressional leaders’ new agreement on a topline funding level for 2024 rightly ensures that overall funding available for non-defense programs will stay at $773 billion, the already tight level set in May’s bipartisan debt ceiling agreement.

Many children and their custodial parents receive child support payments from non-custodial parents to help cover child-rearing costs.[2] Child support can be a significant source of family income...

Addressing the health-related social needs (HRSNs) of pregnant and postpartum people and young children cannot wait. Both Medicaid and the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) can improve health during pregnancy, the postpartum period, and the early years of a child’s life — a high-stakes period of rapid family change.

Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI), an integral part of Social Security, provides modest but vital benefits to workers who can no longer support themselves due to a serious and long-lasting medical impairment.

More than two months into fiscal year 2024, Congress has thus far failed to provide WIC with the additional funding needed this fiscal year to avoid turning away eligible young children and pregnant and postpartum adults with low incomes for the first time in decades.

Some lawmakers and opinion leaders mistakenly portray the program’s benefits as lavish.

The tax cuts — most of which are both permanent and tilted toward wealthy households and corporations — will weaken state revenues by large and growing amounts over time.

Among those hardest hit are programs crucial to the well-being of families with low incomes and their children, to public health, to job training and protection of workers’ rights, to a clean environment, and to fair administration of tax laws.

Non-defense discretionary (NDD) programs comprise domestic and international programs outside of national defense that Congress funds on an annual basis. These programs are called “discretionary” because policymakers have discretion to decide their funding levels each year through the appropriations process — in contrast to “mandatory” or “entitlement” programs such as Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, where the law governing the program and the benefits it provides determines its spending.