Jamie Taylor received two letters from the Missouri Department of Social Services Family Support Division that began, "Good news," before stating that she was denied Medicaid coverage. Her income exceeded the state's limits for the federal-state public health insurance program for people with low incomes.
Missouri officials now blame the incongruous greeting for the decidedly bad news on a computer programming error, but it was just the beginning of Taylor's ongoing saga trying to get assistance from Missouri's safety net. Taylor, now 41, spent hours on the phone, enduring four-hour hold times and dropped calls, and received delayed mailings of time-sensitive documents to her home in Sikeston.
