Prescription drug benefit, new services, better access to health care, information & resources to be offered

Juneau, Alaska – Governor Frank H. Murkowski today announced SeniorCare, a new proposed program to make prescription drugs more affordable for Alaska seniors. “SeniorCare will provide qualified seniors with a prescription drug benefit to assist in the purchase of needed medications,” Governor Murkowski said. SeniorCare will also include a new Senior Information Office and a Preferred Drug List to make prescription drugs more affordable. Seniors receiving the Alaska Senior Assistance Program can choose to continue receiving the cash assistance of $120 a month instead of the drug coverage.

Your life may have gotten just a little bit easier! We are pleased to announce a new way to order your business cards - over the web. With our new online form, staff from the Division of Public Assistance (including Denali KidCare and Job Centers) can now quickly order cards in 3 easy steps.

Preparation for implementation of Semi-Annual Reporting on January 1, 2004 is well underway. Training officially started on Monday of last week. The trainers have been busy presenting training on-site at local offices, and they have a tight schedule in order to finish prior to the holiday season. Policy staff are busy finalizing forms and notices, and compiling a list of Q&A’s from the training sessions. Additionally, Systems Operations is working on getting the system supports in place.

Four program manual changes are going in the mail today and will be arriving in your office soon. These are: ATAP Manual Change #10;
APA Manual Change #7; Food Stamp Manual Change #13; and Medicaid Manual Change #26.

These manual changes have also been posted to our website at http://dpaweb.hss.state.ak.us/node/view/15 and are available for immediate use. Some of the links, however, are not working yet and may not be fully operational until sometime next week.

WASHINGTON, Dec. 2 -- HHS Secretary Tommy G. Thompson announced today that the number of families and individuals receiving assistance under the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program declined slightly between March and June 2003.

There were 2,032,157 families receiving TANF cash benefits in June 2003, the most recent month for which data are available. The total represents a 0.3 percent decrease from March 2003 and a 54 percent decrease from August 1996, when TANF was enacted. A total of 4,955,479 individuals were receiving TANF benefits in June 2003, 0.6 percent fewer than in March and 60 percent fewer than in August 1996.