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State puts legal immigrants back on Medicaid rolls

Friday, Oct. 20, 2006

The state has restored benefits to 4,000 children and pregnant women who are legal immigrants after a months-long legal battle over their health care.

Last week, the Maryland Court of Appeals ruled that Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. (R) violated the state’s constitution when he cut a program in 2005 that provided health care to 4,000 children and pregnant women. The program was for those that were legal immigrants living in the United States for less than five years.

The 13 plaintiffs who brought the lawsuit in November 2005 were put back on the Medicaid rolls on Thursday and their cards should be mailed in a ‘‘day or two,” said state Health Secretary S. Anthony McCann.

Other eligible women and children will be mailed notices in about a week to inform them that their benefits have been restored if they still qualify for the program, he said.

‘‘I could not be more thrilled,” said Douglas M. Bregman, an attorney with Bregman, Berbert, Schwartz & Gilday LLC in Bethesda who represented the 13 legal immigrants, including a 16-year-old girl with West Nile virus and a 7-year-old boy with cancer. ‘‘I was concerned they’d limit it to the 13 people, and now they’ve opened it up to everybody, which was always our wish when we brought the suit initially.”

Some of the 4,000 may no longer be eligible, including those that have turned 18 or women who are no longer pregnant, McCann said. Those who have lived in the United States for longer than five years may qualify for a different program.

The state also will sign up new applicants who were not on the rolls when the program was cut on June 30, 2005, McCann said.

‘‘We’ll be working with various groups to try to reach out to them with the information they need to enroll at social services,” he said.

The program had cost the state $7 million out of a total Medicaid budget of $4 billion.

It is too soon to know how much the restored program will cost the state until it is determined how many people are still eligible and how many new people qualify, McCann said.