Several Mississippi Medicaid patients have filed a lawsuit challenging the program's limit of five prescriptions per month.

The limits were approved by legislators to save money in the public health insurance program. Before July 1, patients could receive up to seven prescriptions a month.

Medicaid is a federal-state health care program for the needy, aged, blind and disabled and for low-income families with children. Some Medicaid services are mandatory, and others are set by state policy makers.

The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court in Jackson and names Gov. Haley Barbour and Medicaid executive director Robert Robinson as defendants. It represents only one side of a legal argument.

The lawsuit seeks to block the limit on prescription drug coverage and lists eight patients as plaintiffs. It seeks to represent all Medicaid recipients affected by the drug limit.

Mississippi's Medicaid budget had grown rapidly in recent years amid growing enrollment and sharply increased costs of prescription drugs.