Case Studies
Administrative Burdens in Higher Education Loan Forgiveness
Administrative burdens play a central role in limiting access to student debt relief programs. Student debt has grown to over .7 trillion, making it the largest share of debt held by Americans, and a barrier to a higher quality of life for many. To address the growing crisis, presidential administrations have implemented various programs intended to provide relief to borrowers. But many of these programs came with administrative burdens that hindered access to relief. This report examines the rise of administrative burdens, and steps taken by the Department of Education to address them.
Expanding Access to Oral Health Care For Children in Maryland
This case study examines efforts to expand access in oral health care for kids, explaining how Maryland went from one of the worst to one of the best states in the country, both by broadening eligibility and reducing the type of administrative burdens that stymied the Driver family, and also discouraged providers from accepting Medicaid coverage. While use of oral health service has been gradually increasing since Deamonte’s death, less than half of children with Medicaid coverage received a preventive dental service in 2018, with substantial variation between states, ranging from 18 percent in North Dakota to 68 percent in Texas. Understanding how states can expand access is therefore substantively important.
Free File Program
In April of 2019, Intuit, H&R Block, and other members of the tax preparation industry were on the cusp of a major policy victory: codifying a 16-year public-private partnership with the IRS into law. That partnership provides Free File, which promised to offer free tax preparation and e-filing to tens of millions of Americans. But within the space of a couple of months, the law passed without the Free File language, problems with Free File became subject to intense scrutiny, and the IRS was criticized for lax oversight. Soon after, the largest members of the Free File Alliance left, putting the future of the partnership in doubt.