Scott MacKay might be long gone from the ProJo, but the WRNI contributor returned to his old haunt on Smith Hill yesterday to offer a legislative preview for the radio station:
The white-haired men dressed in Revolutionary era artillery uniforms were a reminder of Rhode Island's long and florid political traditions. Lawmakers' desks may be adorned with computers, but making laws remains much the same as it ever was, an endeavor more about building the coalitions needed to secure a majority of votes than developing newfangled ideas about changing the world.
But behind the façade of festivities is the tough knowledge that Rhode Island faces a deep and depressing deficit at a time when the state has arguably the nation's worst economic prospects and an unemployment rate far above the national average. ....
Republican Governor Carcieri has pushed a plan that would limit the state's costs over a five-year period in return for giving Rhode Island the flexibility to design its own medical programs to cover poor and lower-income workers.
There are many reasons for the jump in health care expenditures, some of them obvious. When workers lose their jobs and employer-based health insurance, they are often left with no health care alternative except Medicaid and the children's health care programs financed by Medicaid, such as Rhode Island's acclaimed RiteCare program.
But earache-and sore-throat prone children are far cheaper to cover than sick, frail elderly patients, who require more expensive hospital and nursing home care.
In the waning days of the Bush Administration, federal health bureaucrats have approved Carcieri's plan. It will be put into effect automatically unless the General Assembly nixes it by January 18 _ two days before President Bush leaves office.
A public hearing has been scheduled for Friday at 10 a.m. at the State House by the House Finance Committee.
"I expect an intense hearing, an intense process," said House Finance Chairman Steven Costantino, a Providence Democrat. "There are a lot of questions that need to be answered."
"I am not completely sold on it and I'm not completely against it," said Costantino.
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