
MRelief launches end-to-end food stamp enrollment service - tlb
https://techcrunch.com/2018/01/08/mrelief-launches-end-to-end-food-stamp-enrollment-service/
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jstarfish
I applaud the effort, but the bureaucratic structure of these government
programs are Byzantine for a reason. The more people they keep from
successfully enrolling, the less has to be paid out.

Rather than government partnering with the private sector to implement even
more technical crap and everybody patting themselves on the back for a job
well done, why don't they take a step back and realize how fucked up the
fundamental administrative process is and just fucking _fix it_?

MRelief may get one to the door, but it doesn't provide any greater
accountability once you're there. Maybe the system actually works in
California (blue state?), I don't know, but in other parts of the country even
if someone holds your hand to get the application submitted you get to look
forward to your paper applications going missing/stuck in processing
purgatory, online application portals being down for months on end, ignored
phone lines that ring to full voicemail boxes, social workers terminating your
account over requests for documents that were never actually requested (or
that you already provided multiple times), notices of scheduled phone
interviews that consistently show up in the mail after the fact and all manner
of other shady nonsense.

Any excuse that can be played to kick you off the books is fair game, and it's
not like you can get a hold of anyone to appeal it-- your only option is to
re-apply, but meanwhile you're not their problem for a few pay cycles.

For the brief period of time I had to take advantage of food stamps, it really
opened my eyes as to what sorts of bullshit gets heaped upon the people who
need it most.

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ams6110
It's not so much deliberate as it is inherent in the system.

Workers are poorly paid and don't have any real incentive to care. The process
is byzantine and form-dense because it's the government: bureaucrats don't
have much else to do but create and update processes and policies, and the
politicans who make the actual laws are always doing favors for one group or
another, which creates complexity and need for excessive documentation about
which group you fit into.

~~~
jstarfish
I realize government is fueled by apathy and paperwork, but this isn't workers
sitting around doing nothing and barraging applicants with forms...everything
about this system suggests the opposite-- social workers are incentivized to
actively kick people off the books. It's a cost center, not a revenue
generator.

How many times a year does any other agency need copies of your children's
birth certificates or social security cards? How many times a year does the
DMV need to schedule phone interviews with you to ask the exact same questions
you answered on the application and in every subsequent interview? This is
actual work they're having to do, and lots of it.

When you go to file your taxes, how often is the only channel available to you
a fax machine, the receiving end of which is always conveniently out of paper?
Not to mention the hundred pages (in the case of Medicaid) you're expected to
shove through it at $.10 a page, since who the hell has a landline or fax
machine at home anymore.

There's no number you can call, no email you can write, no mail ever reaches
their office and anything hand-delivered ends up languishing in the inbox
under the desk. You can physically go to the office and spend all day in the
waiting room, only to be told "we're working on it." They're completely
inaccessible.

Every time they demand your attention, it's an opportunity for them to say you
failed to respond...the consequences of which are always immediate
termination. Anybody who's played the rebate or health insurance games should
recognize how this works. Both systems are designed to minimize payouts by
disqualifying as many applicants as possible.

But again, hopefully California is different, and I'm glad to see people get
utility out of this service. It's just sad that it's necessary in the first
place.

~~~
ams6110
Everything you mentioned was probably originally created as a well-intentioned
response to the fraud that sadly is rampant in social assistance programs.

~~~
newfoundglory
Or at least, in response to the unsubstantiated suspicion that fraud is
rampant in these programs.

