State to Restore Its Coverage of Some Immigrants

Maryland will reinstate health care benefits to poor legal immigrant children and pregnant womenin response to a court ruling that found it improper to cut them from Medicaid rolls, state officials said yesterday.

After about 4,000 immigrants lost their coverage because of a $7 million budget cut last year, a group of 13 sick children sued to get the benefits reinstated. Last week, Maryland's highest court ruled in the group's favor and returned the case to a lower court judge.

Late yesterday, S. Anthony McCann, secretary of the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, said he restored the benefits after consulting with his counsel and Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr.'s office.

New medical assistance cards will be mailed to the children named in the lawsuit "in the next day or two," McCann said. In addition, state officials will inform other former recipients who remain eligible that their coverage has been restored, he said.

State social service offices are being told to reach out to families who might have become eligible for the program. Among the criteria is that immigrants have been permanent legal residents for less than five years.

How the program would be funded is being resolved, McCann said.

Douglas M. Bregman, one of the children's attorneys, rejoiced over the ruling. "This is a wonderful victory," he said. "We only had 13 plaintiffs. Now we have everybody back in the program."

With the federal Welfare Reform Act of 1996, Congress made most legal immigrants ineligible for federal programs such as Medicaid in their first five years. But many jurisdictions, including Maryland, Virginia and the District, continued to use their money to provide some coverage to recent immigrants.