Montana families deemed eligible to receive the state’s child care subsidy for low-income earners will now automatically qualify for a separate program that provides nutritional and breastfeeding support to caretakers of young children. The Montana Department of Public Health and Human Services announced Friday that Best Beginnings scholarship recipients will no longer have to prove separate eligibility for the Women, Infants and Children nutritional program. Participants in either program must earn a household income at or below 185% of the federal poverty line, currently $47,767 annually for .
WIC enrollees must be pregnant, postpartum, breastfeeding or have a child younger than 5. “Both of these programs serve many of the same families, so as a way to improve customer service we made the decision to streamline the eligibility process for families,” said Lacy Little, Montana WIC program director, in an emailed statement. “This will make it easier for families to gain access to the nutritional food and support the WIC program provides.
” This change comes in the wake of and its handling of the Medicaid redetermination process that led to over 115,000 people being disenrolled from the joint federal-state health insurance program. During the unwinding period, droves of people said they didn’t receive re-enrollment information in a timely fashion or at the correct mailing address. DPHHS reported some of the longest help line wait times in the country, and many people.
