Up to 150,000 low-income Ohioans, including several thousand in Greater Cincinnati, will be temporarily re-enrolled in the state Medicaid program because they were improperly dropped as part of welfare reform.

        Letters from the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services are going out this week to people who stopped receiving cash assistance as part of welfare reform but were also dropped from Medicaid from November 1997 to April of this year.

        The letters include special cards providing three months of Medicaid coverage (from January through March 2001) regardless of the family's current income. The letters will include an application for continuing Medicaid coverage, which will require meeting income qualifications.

        State officials could not say Monday how many letters were going to people in Greater Cincinnati. However, Hamilton County was one of the state's most aggressive counties at reducing welfare enrollment.

        The reinstatement letters come in response to an April 7 order from the U.S. Health Care Financing Administration, which was drafted after several consumer advocacy groups criticized Ohio's handling of the Medicaid coverage issue. In recent years, several local health clinics reported sharp increases in uninsured patients seeking treatment after they lost Medicaid eligibility.

        “This action is a very positive step by the state of Ohio to address an unintended consequence of welfare reform,” said Trey Daly, a senior attorney with the Legal Aid Society of Greater Cincinnati. “Families were supposed to be able to keep medical coverage as Medicaid was de-linked from welfare. But instead, 95,000 parents lost medical coverage in the last four years.”

        Even though 150,000 letters will be sent, state officials remain unsure exactly how many Ohioans wound up uninsured because they left welfare.

        The state is trying not to send letters to those known to have died or moved out of state, said Jane Haller, Job and Family Services spokeswoman.

        But officials cannot tell how many of those who lost Medicaid coverage went on to find jobs that offer health benefits. They also cannot tell how many simply don't want Medicaid coverage.

        “Some people may not have known they qualified for Medicaid. Some may have walked away because they wanted nothing to do with the old welfare system anymore,” Ms. Haller said. “One of our goals is to get people to understand that our Healthy Start and Healthy Families programs should not be considered welfare.”

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