By Vanessa Dabovich
Las Cruces, NM – The grants, which total $3.1 million, were awarded to New Mexico, Washington and Pennsylvania by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and will fund pilot projects to increase Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program or SNAP participation among Medicare's Extra Help population.
Extra Help is also known as the Low Income Subsidy and helps low-income individuals or couples with limited resources pay for their Medicare prescriptions.
New Mexico will use the million dollars to conduct a program that will create certain eligibility factors, create a simplified application, standardize the medical deduction, and target only those households that contain individuals or couples with no earned income. The state will have two standard benefits based on high and low shelter costs.
New Mexico U.S Senator Tom Udall says this grant will allow New Mexico to expand its nutrition assistance so that our seniors don't have to make the choice between buying nutritious food and keeping a roof over their heads.
While the SNAP participation rate among all eligible persons was 67 percent in 2008, the participation rate is less than one third among eligible elderly. SNAP helps nearly 41.3 million Americans each month put healthy food on the table.