COLUMBUS (AP) - The state on Wednesday reversed a decision to eliminate a program this year that provides health care to poor Ohioans who have no other coverage.

The human services department is proposing to cut funding as part of the upcoming two-year budget but because of the program's costs decided to end it early, beginning in March.

Advocates for the poor had protested the decision and questioned the state's ability to end the program without going through the budget process.

''Those comments were heard clearly,'' said Jon Allen, spokesman for the Department of Job and Family Services.

Under the change announced Wednesday, Ohio won't cut off enrollments for Disability Medical Assistance beginning in March, as planned. That phase-out would have saved about $4 million this year.

Instead, the Department of Job and Family Services will proceed with a proposal to cut the funding in October.

The program serves about 15,000 poor Ohioans with chronic medical conditions such as heart problems, diabetes or mental illness who earn less than $115 a month.

They are typically single, unemployed adults under 65 who aren't eligible for Medicaid, the joint state-federal program for poor families and children.

They also aren't eligible for federal programs for the disabled, although they may become eligible for Medicaid or federal assistance if they're determined to meet certain disability standards. Eliminating the program would save about $73 million a year.

''These are very, very, very poor people,'' said Col Owens, co-chairman of the Ohio Family Coverage Coalition, a consumer-health advocacy group. ''These are the most destitute people in our society.''

Owens said the state's decision means the debate over funding the program will be done where it belongs: in the context of Gov. Bob Taft's entire $51 billion spending proposal.

Many of the people receiving assistance suffer from mental illnesses, said Gayle Channing Tenenbaum, of the Public Children's Services Association of Ohio.

''You can't just take a person's psychotropic drugs away from them,'' she said. ''You have to be really weaned off of them.''

The proposal to cut the program next year comes as the state struggles to slow the growth of the $10 billion Medicaid program, which now accounts for almost 40 percent of state spending.

Taft's budget proposal tries to slow Medicaid's growth to about 4 percent instead of the double digit increases expected without cuts and funding freezes.