Ford School Professor Pamela Herd addressed barriers to families accessing health benefits at a recent conference. Herd, the Carol Kakalec Kohn Professor of Social Policy, was speaking a forum organized by the Tax Policy Center, a collaboration between the Urban Institute and Brookings Institution which looked at the child tax credit (CTC), Cash Assistance for Children: Research Roundup and the Policy Future.
Herd noted that administrative barriers keep many families from claiming benefits. Roughly 70 percent of Medicaid disenrollment during the post-pandemic “unwinding” stemmed from paperwork errors, not ineligibility. Similar friction hampers tax credits. Streamlining the process through automation and data-sharing could dramatically increase CTC and Earned Income Tax Credit participation.
"The people who need these benefits the most are just not able to get through those hurdles."
“If you make people prove they’re eligible five times in five different ways,” Herd said, “you guarantee that those most in need will fall through the cracks.”
She and her fellow panelists concluded that tax credits are not mere transfers, they are investments in human capital that deliver intergenerational returns.
You can see the video of the conference here (Herd speaks at 1:15:10)
