About Us - National Medicaid Food Security Learning Action Network

Who We Are

The Medicaid Food Security Network is a group of healthcare and food security stakeholders, mobilizing Medicaid systems to become a key partner in addressing food and nutrition insecurity.

Participants in The Network engage, influence, and partner with state Medicaid programs and Medicaid-serving systems (Managed Care Organizations and providers) to adopt and implement effective strategies to support the food needs of children and families enrolled in Medicaid, with an emphasis on closing the enrollment gap in SNAP and WIC.

Mission and Vision

Mission

Support anti-hunger advocates to engage, influence, and partner with state Medicaid programs and Medicaid-serving systems in adopting and implementing effective strategies to support the full spectrum of food needs of children and families enrolled in Medicaid with an emphasis on closing the enrollment gap in SNAP and WIC.

Vision

The Medicaid Food Security Network will provide state and national anti-hunger and healthcare advocates, and other stakeholders with the infrastructure for collaboration, technical assistance, and tools for policy and advocacy. Network participants will be able to successfully identify, advocate for, and implement effective, state-specific policies and programs for every state Medicaid program.

What We Do

We will achieve our mission through three key activities:

Develop and Distribute

Share and develop resources and advocacy tools for food-security and Medicaid stakeholders.

Convene and Collaborate

Serve as the only national forum for collaboration around Medicaid’s role in food insecurity for children and families.

Accelerate Policy Change

Share learnings from the Network to inform state and federal administrative policy change that maximizes Medicaid’s impact on food security. Accelerate Medicaid policy change in select states through the Medicaid Partners Program.

Why Medicaid?

The Medicaid program, which covers more than 87 million individuals, has the unique ability to reach people who are economically vulnerable and may not be able to access adequate food and nutrition. An estimated 17 million of those enrollees (including 7 million children) are food-insecure. The burden of that food insecurity falls disproportionately on people of color.

Medicaid is uniquely positioned to address this crisis with the resources and incentives to make an impact, including:

Increasing pressure on Medicaid systems to manage costs and address health inequities,
Garnering federal White House and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services support for Medicaid-based nutrition strategies,
Utilizing inherent policy flexibility,
Access to $748 billion of funding,
Presence of its robust infrastructure, including networks of community-based providers, and its managed care procurement cycles that present opportunities for policy and program change.

Medicaid agencies and their partners, however, may struggle to implement new policy due to capacity limitations, lack of food security expertise, and political context. A National Medicaid Food Security Network has the opportunity to mobilize Medicaid systems to become a key partner in addressing food and nutrition insecurity.

Steering Committee

The Network is led by co-designers and a steering committee made up of food-security and healthcare stakeholders.

Co-Designers

Share Our Strength is ending hunger and poverty – in the United States and abroad. Through proven, effective campaigns like No Kid Hungry, we connect people who care to ideas that work.

HealthBegins partners with and trains courageous leaders to improve the social drivers of health and equity at all levels: individual social needs, community-level social determinants of health, and deeper structural determinants of health equity.

Steering Committee

Food Research and Action Center
Feeding America
Community Servings – Liaison to the Food is Medicine Coalition
Center for Health Law and Policy Innovation
UnidosUS
Association for Community Affiliated Plans
Children’s HealthWatch

Network Members

Participants in the National Medicaid Food Security Network represent anti-hunger advocates and healthcare stakeholders from across the country. Network members benefit from quarterly online convenings, learning resources, and a network of organizations working on addressing food-insecurity through Medicaid.

Interested in joining? Fill out this form.

For inquiries, please contact Elena Rees at MFSN@strength.org.

For regular updates, join MFSN.