Leading The Way On Health Care
By Dominick J. Ruggerio, Valarie J. Lawson, David P. Tikoian, and Melissa Murray
Rhode Island’s health care system remains in a deeply perilous place. For our constituents, and for the providers we all rely on, it is imperative that we act now to improve it.
Unfortunately, the challenges we face are increasingly familiar:
Extreme difficulty seeing – or even finding – a primary care provider or specialist.
Coverage denials or surprise bills requiring endless haggling with insurance companies.
Providers forced to spend far too much time and energy on paperwork and demands unrelated to care.
Health systems beset by serious financial challenges.
Essential community resources, including hospitals, teetering on the brink.
The situation is not tenable. Ensuring every Rhode Islander can access quality, affordable care when they need it is critical for our health, our communities, and our future. So is ensuring that providers, and the thousands of Rhode Islanders they employ, have the stability and support they need to focus on the patient care and the practice of medicine.
In the Rhode Island Senate, health care has been an absolute top priority. We are fortunate to have many talented, dedicated members of our chamber whose expertise and experience has contributed greatly to this work. Together, we have made real progress, including the creation of a commission sponsored by Sen. V. Susan Sosnowski (D-Dist. 37, South Kingstown) and co-chaired by Sen. Pamela Lauria (D-Dist. 32, Barrington, Bristol, East Providence) and URI President Marc Parlange to study the feasibility of a medical school at the University of Rhode Island.
We have increased certain Medicaid reimbursement rates, expanded primary care training sites, and prohibited of medical debt reporting to credit bureaus.
We remain committed to finding solutions that make a real difference, and we will continue to explore all available avenues to ease the health care crisis.
That’s why we are supporting the governor’s budget proposal to conduct a review of primary care reimbursement rates and set a regular process for review of those rates going forward. This is a vital part of what’s needed to stabilize Rhode Island’s primary care infrastructure, which is foundational to the health care system as a whole.
The Senate overwhelmingly passed primary care rate review legislation in 2024, and we will work with our colleagues in government to make it law in 2025.
Recently, we were proud to introduce a nine-bill legislative package that represents a portion of the Senate’s work on this incredibly important policy area. Solving this crisis cannot be done through a single piece of legislation, or any single collection of bills. But our focus on three general areas of health care – primary care and providers, pharmacies and prescriptions, and patients and families – represents the holistic, inclusive approach we are taking.
We must make Rhode Island a more attractive place for health care providers to practice. That starts with primary care providers, but it extends across the entire continuum of care. That’s why we are supporting Chairwoman Murray’s legislation to end prior authorization requirements for primary care providers, Sen. Brian Thompson’s (D-Dist. 20, Woonsocket, Cumberland) bill to allow for Medicaid funding to support graduate medical education programs and research across many areas of practice, and Sen. Peter A. Appollonio Jr.’s (D-Dist. 29, Warwick) bill to address needless backlogs in medical licensing approval, among others.
Pharmacies increasingly play a critical role in delivering health care services. But a range of factors, including how prescription drug costs are managed, can create serious issues for pharmacists and patients. To address this, we are supporting bills from Senators Lori Urso (D-Dist. 8, Pawtucket) and Linda L. Ujifusa (D-Dist. 11, Portsmouth, Bristol) to take on “spread pricing” schemes that hurt pharmacies and consumers, as well as Sen. Robert Britto’s (D-Dist. 18, East Providence, Pawtucket) bill that will enable pharmacists to administer certain vaccines to all eligible patients regardless of age.
Navigating our health care system can be a time-consuming headache for patients and families. Too often, needless obstacles stand in the way of essential care, and we must work to eliminate them. That’s why our legislative package includes Sen. John Burke’s (D-Dist. 9, West Warwick) cap on medical debt interest rates, Sen. Jacob E. Bissaillon’s (D-Dist. 1, Providence) plan to prohibit medical debt lien attachments, and Majority Whip Lawson’s bill clarifying eligibility for supplemental Medicare coverage plans.
These are just some of the initiatives we believe are necessary to address the health care challenges we are facing, and we will work with all of our colleagues on many bills not specifically labeled as part of this package. The challenges we face are significant.
The work ahead will be difficult. We need everyone’s energy, talent, and commitment to effectively address our health care crisis, and as the Senate’s leadership team, we stand ready to do what is necessary to improve the cost and quality of care for every Rhode Islander.
Dominick J. Ruggerio (D-Dist. 4, North Providence, Providence), Valarie J. Lawson (D-Dist. 14, East Providence), and David P. Tikoian (D-Dist. 22, Smithfield, North Providence, Lincoln) are President, Majority Leader, and Majority Whip, respectively, of the Rhode Island State Senate. Melissa Murray (D-Dist. 24, Woonsocket, North Smithfield) is Chairwoman of the Senate Committee on Health and Human Services.