Opportunity Knocks

Howard Dean wants the party to run in all 50 states. Thomas Frank wants to know What's the Matter with Kansas? Well Opportunity knocks for Democrats.

Starting Friday, most Medicaid recipients in Mississippi will be limited to five prescription drugs at a time, with no process for appeal. The cap appears to be the most restrictive in the nation, but is just one of many measures being taken by states seeking to rein in soaring Medicaid costs.

It will hit hard for people like Erainna Johnson, 42, left legally blind by a stroke in 1997. She takes 19 medications - already more than the previous Medicaid limit of seven - relying on family members, her church and free samples from doctors to make up the difference. "Sometimes I just crack my pills in half, honestly," she said, sitting in the living room of her trailer here.
Mississippi is among many states moving aggressively to contain Medicaid costs, saying severe measures are necessary if the program is to continue. In Missouri, new cuts also took effect Friday in an effort to reduce the rolls; for example, a single mother of three in Missouri is now ineligible if she makes more than $350 a month. About a dozen states limit the number of prescriptions offered to adult patients, but almost all provide for an appeal process or allow doctors to override the limit.
In Mississippi, where more than a quarter of the population is on Medicaid, the cap includes a limit of two name-brand drugs. The only patients exempt from the rule are children, people in nursing homes and patients with H.I.V., who were given an 11th-hour reprieve because virtually none of the anti-viral drugs used were available in generic form.
Gov. Haley Barbour, a Republican who backed steeper cuts to Medicaid than those enacted, said the Legislature had come up with the limit on prescription drugs on its own. But, he added, "states are limited in their options as far as cost control."

This is something I should think the Democratic Party should be responding to.  This is a real issue. This is the consequences of GOP policies of tax cuts for the rich. Are their any Mississipians out there who can tell us how the Democratic party is responding to this opportunity in Mississippi?  Or for that matter Missouri?