States ordered to re-enlist families kicked off Medicaid

Friday, April 7th 2000, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

WASHINGTON (AP) -- In a move that could put hundreds of thousands of people back on Medicaid, states were ordered Friday to determine whether they improperly cut poor families off Medicaid who left welfare and to sign them back up.

The Health Care Financing Administration, which runs Medicaid, told states in a letter to do extensive searches of computer files to identify families that lost Medicaid coverage when they got off welfare.

"We're asking states to review their own records -- and to be sure that no one who was entitled to keep Medicaid after leaving cash assistance lost out," Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala said at a children's' health insurance conference.

States were also ordered to reinstate disabled children who were required to get Medicaid after they lost their supplemental Social
Security benefits, but didn't. Experts estimate that at least 100,000 children were eligible for coverage.

Shalala said the federal government will help states pay administrative expenses and will match any state dollars used to reimburse families for medical bills that would have been covered by Medicaid during the time they were terminated.

States are not required to reimburse families for doctor bills they paid after they were improperly cut off, however.

Medicaid enrollment dropped about 200,000 to 41.4 million in 1998, the last year for which figures are available. About 200,000 children were dropped, but 300,000 women and 400,000 disabled adults were added, according to HHS.

The federal-state program, which provides health benefits for low-income Americans, cost an estimated $181 billion last year -- the federal governments' share was $103 billion.

HHS officials could not provide estimates of how many people have been improperly kicked off Medicaid. But studies suggest that
hundreds of thousands of people lost Medicaid coverage as they left welfare.

A 1999 study by Families USA, a consumer advocacy group that lobbies for universal health coverage, estimated that 675,000
people lost Medicaid coverage in 1997 and had no health insurance because of the improper cut-offs, adding to concerns about the
number of Americans with no coverage, which numbers at least 44 million.

Advocates for the poor have long complained that as states moved quickly to cut people off welfare, many families were losing Medicaid coverage even though they were still eligible because many states' computer systems automatically dropped people from Medicaid
when they left welfare.

Ron Pollack, president of Families USA, applauded the announcement but said the states have so far resisted making changes that would have kept many people from getting kicked off Medicaid in the first place.

It's very much on the right track," said Pollack. "But does itmean states will fulfill their obligation? That's something we'll have to monitor very carefully.