March 26, 2007
Judith Clark, Pharmacy Services Director
Division of Medicaid, State of Mississippi
Dear Ms. Clark:
I am writing on behalf of the thousands of lawyers, law students, and activists of the Student Hurricane Network, an organization working to rebuild and repair the lives of Hurricane Katrina survivors in Mississippi and Louisiana, to sing the praises of one of your employees, Joyce Hunter. Ms. Hunter today gave assistance vastly beyond the call of duty. I am stunned as I write this to recall the difference she made in one person’s life today in ten minutes on the phone.
As a volunteer for the Matchmakers 4 Justice program, I was asked to meet with a resident (name redacted to protect confidentiality) to discuss her potential legal issues and help her resolve them. This resident is a middle-aged woman in poor health receiving Medicaid from the State of Mississippi. She receives seven prescriptions per month, but the State will only provide five of them. This had the potential to become a serious problem, and so the resident asked me to contact the Division of Medicaid to find a solution.
Ms. Hunter, in ten minutes on the phone, solved the entire problem. By informing me that Medicaid would fill three-month supplies for some of the resident’s prescriptions, if her doctor deemed it necessary, Ms. Hunter made it possible for the resident to afford to fill all her prescriptions. When I informed her of this, she showered praise upon me – but all that praise should really go to Ms. Hunter. It is my hope that whatever incentive system the Division maintains will consider this incident in Ms. Hunter’s favor.
Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions about this incident.
With kindest regards, I remain,
Very truly yours,
mkrell
And this, my friends, is why we're liberals. Because when government does things like this, it can save lives.
Just one bureaucrat, taking ten minutes to help a bewildered law student find a solution to a problem he'd been asked to solve - and being willing to think a little outside the box (not even much outside the box).