

The pandemic also has created once-in-a-generation pools of money from pandemic relief funding and higher-than-expected tax revenues to fund such projects. In response to the new light shed on these long-standing problems, momentum is building for government tech updates.
#Snail mail online tv
For example, while private-sector businesses beefed up the ability to stream TV shows, created apps for food deliveries, and moved offices online, public health officials tracked covid outbreaks by fax machine. Instead, they are part of what the National Association of State Medicaid Directors' executive director, Matt Salo, called "the next great challenge that government has to solve." Namely: the extremely outdated technology used by a humongous web of government agencies, from local public health to state-run benefits programs.Īlthough many people like Taylor struggled with these systems before the pandemic began, covid-19 exposed just how antiquated and ill equipped many of them were to handle unprecedented demand. Taylor's struggles are not uncommon in Missouri or even nationally. 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. 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. Her income exceeded the state's limits for the federal-state public health insurance program for people with low incomes.


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. This article originally appeared on Kaiser Health News.
