COLUMBUS, Ohio – The state is sending out letters Friday to 107,000 Medicaid recipients telling them that their health-care benefits will be terminated Feb. 28 for failing to verify their income.
READ MORE: In the Columbus Dispatch
“They should consider this as a final notice,” said Sam Rossi, spokesman for the Ohio Department of Medicaid. “There is personal responsibility. You need to report income for a program like Medicaid.”
Another 140,000 recipients will receive termination notices next week with 100,000 scheduled for March.
All are poised to lose benefits for failing to submit information needed to confirm that their household income falls within Medicaid eligibility guidelines. It is not clear how many still qualify for coverage and how many don’t because of an increase in income.
“All in all, about half a million people by the first six months of year,” face losing Medicaid benefits, said Joel Potts, executive director of the Ohio Job and Family Services Association.
The association and advocates for the poor have urged state officials to delay terminating benefits because fewer than half of those sent renewal notifications by the state in December have responded, and many never received them.
Some problems, Potts said, may have been caused by apartment numbers being placed above recipient’s names on envelopes, preventing them from being delivered. Notices also were only sent in English although some communities serve large populations who speak other languages.
According to state officials, 25 to 30 percent of the packets were returned as undeliverable. About 45 percent were mailed back with the requested information to verify income.
About 2.9 million poor Ohioans receive Medicaid, including 450,000 who became eligible last year under Gov. John Kasich’s Medicaid expansion.