Implement Iowa State Supplementary Payment (SSP)#8017
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hua7450 wants to merge 6 commits intoPolicyEngine:mainfrom
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Implement Iowa State Supplementary Payment (SSP)#8017hua7450 wants to merge 6 commits intoPolicyEngine:mainfrom
hua7450 wants to merge 6 commits intoPolicyEngine:mainfrom
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Adds Iowa SSA (Iowa Code Ch 249; IAC 441 Chs 50-52, 54, 177) covering: - Blind supplement (flat $22/month) - Dependent Person (DP) supplement (5 household configurations) - Family-Life Home (FLH) supplement (max $142/month) - In-Home Health-Related Care (IHHRC) supplement (cost-based, max $480.55/$961.10) - Residential Care Facility (RCF) supplement (cost-related per diem) - Supplement for Medicare and Medicaid Eligibles (SMME) (flat $1/month) Closes PolicyEngine#7733
Codecov Report✅ All modified and coverable lines are covered by tests. Additional details and impacted files@@ Coverage Diff @@
## main #8017 +/- ##
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+ Coverage 91.75% 98.11% +6.36%
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Files 42 23 -19
Lines 837 319 -518
Branches 22 2 -20
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- Hits 768 313 -455
+ Misses 67 6 -61
+ Partials 2 0 -2
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- Verified $3,031 DP BLIND_WITH_AGED configuration against Iowa HHS; replaced typo comment with verification note - Fixed 4 broken PDF page anchors (blind.yaml, SMME + DP docstrings) - Added formulas to ia_ssa_has_full_medicaid / ia_ssa_has_medicare_part_b delegating to federal medicaid_enrolled / medicare_enrolled, making SMME reachable in microsim - Added IAC 441-177.4(1)(c) own-home eligibility check to IHHRC category - Extracted ia_ssa_ihhrc_both_need_care variable; removed hard-coded 2 duplicated in two files - Reworked 5 non-functional ineligible tests to exercise ia_ssa_resources_eligible via ssi_countable_resources - Added ia_ssa_resources_eligible.yaml with boundary coverage (single/couple x below/at/above) - Added couple IHHRC test cases (at cap, above cap, one-spouse fallback) - Expanded category priority from 4 to 11 cases (IHHRC/DP/BLIND/SMME pairings) - Locked in blind combinability: blind RCF resident -> $0 blind supplement - Documented IAC 441-52.1(4) mutual exclusivity in ia_ssa_blind_supplement docstring - Consolidated test files to one-per-variable: merged integration_* and test_2025_to_2026_transition cases into variable-specific files with ssi + ia_ssa outputs side-by-side Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
The prior formulas used `max(0, -uncapped_ssi) + ssi` as a proxy for total monthly income. That expression equals `|FBR − countable_income|`, not actual income, which caused material errors: - RCF eligibility and client participation understated income for anyone with outside income below the FBR, overpaying the supplement by hundreds and classifying high-income residents as eligible. - IHHRC cap (IAC 441—177.4(1)(f)) was compared against excess-over-FBR instead of monthly countable income, letting recipients with countable income far above the $480.55 cap qualify whenever they were below the FBR. - DP and FLH phase-out (federally-administered per POMS SI 01415.050.F) did not use the federal SSP formula, paying the full cap in income bands where the supplement should phase down dollar-for-dollar. Fixes: - RCF and IHHRC (state-administered) use monthly SSI countable income + federal SSI payment as total income, matching IAC 441—52.1 rules. - DP and FLH (federally-administered) use `max(0, total_standard − max(countable, FBR))`, matching POMS SSP rules. - Delete unused flh.personal_needs_allowance parameter (dead code — FLH assistance standard is a lumped sum that already includes the allowance). - Add regression tests for each bug. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
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Summary
Implements Iowa's State Supplementary Assistance (SSA) — a state SSI supplement program administered by Iowa Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) under Iowa Code Chapter 249. SSA provides six modeled supplement categories (Blind, Dependent Person, Family-Life Home, In-Home Health-Related Care, Residential Care Facility, and Supplement for Medicare and Medicaid Eligibles) for low-income aged, blind, and disabled Iowans who receive or would receive federal SSI.
Closes #7733
Regulatory Authority
Program Overview
ia_ssa(SSA = State Supplementary Assistance per Iowa Code Ch 249 title; "SSP" is colloquial only).Six Modeled Supplement Categories
Category priority (highest to lowest, enforced in
ia_ssa_category): RCF → IHHRC → FLH → DP → Blind → SMME → NONE.Eligibility
is_ssi_eligibleuncapped_ssidefined_for = StateCode.IAresources/limit(identical limits)Benefit Amounts (Iowa HHS SSA page + 6-B manual)
Blind — IAC 441—52.1(4)
Dependent Person — IAC 441—52.1(2), 6-B manual p.16–26, Iowa HHS 2026 page
Family-Life Home — IAC 441—52.1(1), 6-B manual p.26
In-Home Health-Related Care — IAC 441—177.4(1)(f) (frozen)
Residential Care Facility — IAC 441—52.1(3), IL 2024-12-30
SMME — IAC 441—52.1(7) (frozen)
Couple treatment: DP and FLH use per-couple configurations with both spouses eligible; RCF/IHHRC use per-person cost caps; Blind/SMME use individual flat amounts.
COLA: Annual, effective January 1, per IAC 441—52.1 introductory text and Iowa Code §249.9A (for RCF PNA, new in 2024). Blind ($22), IHHRC caps ($480.55/$961.10), and SMME ($1) are frozen in IAC rule text (no COLA).
Not Modeled (by design)
uncapped_ssi > 0proxy covers federal SSI disregards; state-specific unmet-medical disregards require inputs not in PolicyEngineFiles
Historical Coverage
Parameters start at 2017-07-01 — the statutory effective date when IAC 441—52.1(3) removed the RCF flat-per-diem option and moved to cost-related-only reimbursement, aligning the entire program implementation with the post-2017 regulatory regime.
The 2017-07-01 entry uses the earliest-verified Iowa HHS rates (the 2024-published values preserved in the 6-B manual and Wayback snapshots). PolicyEngine date-carry applies these values to 2017-2023 simulations. Updates are added at 2025-01-01 and 2026-01-01 where rates change. This approach follows agent-lessons guidance against encoding unverified historical values.
2012-2016 and pre-2017 rates are not encoded — Wayback snapshots of the Iowa DHS SSA page return 404 for those years, and SSA stopped publishing state-by-state SSP reports after 2011. Future PRs may backdate if Iowa HHS provides historical records.
2026 DP Value Verification
The 2026 DP configuration (d) "Blind Client + Aged/Disabled Spouse + Dependent Relative" shows $3,031 on the Iowa HHS SSA page — a 53% jump from 2025's $1,975, while all other 2026 DP values reflect a ~2.8% COLA (expected ~$2,031). Verified against Iowa HHS SSA page (https://hhs.iowa.gov/assistance-programs/state-supplementary-assistance): the anomalous value is what Iowa publishes. YAML comment documents the anomaly.
/review-program Critical Fixes Applied
A follow-up commit applied all 13 critical issues surfaced by
/review-program:Parameters & references:
Variables:
ia_ssa_has_full_medicaidandia_ssa_has_medicare_part_bnow delegate to federalmedicaid_enrolled/medicare_enrolled— SMME is reachable in microsim (previously defaulted to False, leaving SMME unreachable). Docstrings document the full-vs-partial Medicaid and Part-A-vs-B gaps for future refinement.in_own_home = ~in_rcf & ~in_flh. IHHRC no longer claims category precedence over FLH for FLH residents.ia_ssa_ihhrc_both_need_carevariable extractsmarital_unit.sum(needs_ihhrc) == 2, deduplicating the hard-coded2fromia_ssa_category.pyandia_ssa_ihhrc_supplement.py.ia_ssa_blind_supplementdocstring documents IAC 441—52.1(4) mutual exclusivity: blind recipient receives $22 only if no higher-priority category applies.Tests:
is_ssi_eligible: false(short-circuiting the logic); now usessi_countable_resources: 5000to exerciseia_ssa_resources_eligible→ia_ssa_eligiblecomposition.ia_ssa_resources_eligible.yamlwith 5 boundary cases (single/couple × below/at/above limit).$961.10couple cap andboth_need_careswitch are now exercised.Test file consolidation:
test_2025_to_2026_transition.yamlremoved (all cases duplicated supplement-file cases).ssi: [x]andia_ssa: [y]side-by-side so the federal-plus-state total is explicit from outputs.Verification TODO
Test plan
social_security/employment_incomeinputs assertingssi+ia_ssaside-by-side, resource-eligibility boundary tests, category priority pairings including own-home rule, 2025→2026 transition boundaries, 2017-07-01 effective-date testKey Citations