Outgoing inmates get a boost

Toledo Blade: Under Director Gary Mohr, the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction has prudently made prisoner re-entry a core part of its mission. Its investments and initiatives, such as community-based corrections programs, halfway houses, and a strong network of local re-entry coalitions, have paid dividends for the entire state.

The expansion of the state’s Medicaid program under the federal Affordable Care Act is giving the correction department another opportunity to improve what it does with newly released prisoners.

Ohio Medicaid is providing hundreds of thousands of working-poor adults with access to medical care, as well as substance abuse and mental health treatment. Among those who are newly eligible for benefits are most of the more than 21,000 people a year released from Ohio’s 27 prisons.

Costing little or nothing, the correction department’s Medicaid enrollment program will ensure that Ohio makes maximum use of that change for returning.