R.I. receives $130M to improve health care, bolster workforce

GOV. GINA M. RAIMONDO called the nearly $130 million in federal funds to improve workforce training and transform care delivery "a big win for Rhode Island" and "a win for our economy." / PBN FILE PHOTO/RUPERT WHITELEY
GOV. GINA M. RAIMONDO called the nearly $130 million in federal funds to improve workforce training and transform care delivery "a big win for Rhode Island" and "a win for our economy." / PBN FILE PHOTO/RUPERT WHITELEY

(Updated 3:20 p.m.)
PROVIDENCE – It was standing room only in the Statehouse’s State Room, where Gov. Gina M. Raimondo and other officials announced Monday that the U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services will award $129.5 million to Rhode Island over five years.

The funds will be distributed to the state, based on matching dollar-for-dollar on investments being made here for health care for Medicaid patients; approximately one-third of Rhode Island’s population, or about 290,000 individuals, are enrolled in Medicaid, said Elizabeth Roberts, secretary of the R.I. Executive Office of Health and Human Services.

According to information provided by the EOHHS office after the press conference, a maximum of $20.5 million will support a transitional program to help hospitals and nursing facilities transition to Accountable Care Organizations. The balance, including about $6 million for health care workforce development curricula and programming at the Community College of Rhode Island, Rhode Island College and the University of Rhode Island, will support the further development of ACOs, administrative costs by the state and smaller state programs eligible for federal matching funds.

This news today – Reinventing Medicaid 2.0. – follows on the heels of other good news, reported Raimondo.
“We’re on track to realize more than $100 million in state Medicaid funding for this year alone, without touching eligibility; we’ve expanded eligibility. We’re taking care of more people and saving that $100 million in taxpayer money” by choosing more coordinated care and spending money to keep people healthier. “Rhode Island has the lowest average premium in the United States, cut our uninsured rate in half and has the best Medicaid-managed program for kids in the country – [these are] all things you can be proud of.”

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“This is a big win for Rhode Island – it is a win for our people, and it is a win for our economy,” Raimondo said in a statement, adding the announcement builds on a progressive package of Reinventing Medicaid reforms.

Roberts said that if those in the community can be supported, their quality of life is greatly enhanced.

“We hear from providers all the time that they need upfront investment. This is that investment,” said Roberts who lauded U.S. Rep. James R. Langevin for his story.

Langevin told the crowd that community support allowed him to address and live with his permanent spinal cord injury – after he was accidentally shot as a teenager in a Warwick Police Department station – and go on to live a full life in public service. Without that community support and the certified nursing assistants and others who helped Langevin learn the tools he needed to be independent, he told the audience that he might have been institutionalized at the Eleanor Slater Hospital.

In addition to supporting, reinforcing and expanding the public higher education institutions’ health care curricula and programs, these federal funds, said Roberts, allow us to think creatively about linking together different kinds of care that meet people’s needs.

Under Medicaid 1.0, we hoped to see 25,000 people enrolled in ACOs; now, we have 100,000 enrolled in ACOs, she said. Addressing leaders from the private sector, universities and colleges and elected and appointed officials, Roberts said, “[The federal government] wants to invest with us…[and] recognizes your investment in the workforce … This funding will transform how we meet the needs of Rhode Islanders.”

With more than 90 percent of CCRI graduates staying in the state when they graduate, working here, raising families here and paying taxes here, they become part of the community, said CCRI President Meghan Hughes.

“An investment in these students is an investment in Rhode Island,” Hughes said.

Other speakers were U.S. Sen. Whitehouse, U.S. Rep. David Cicilline, RIC President Frank Sánchez, URI Provost Donald DeHayes and John Oleksa, a Medicaid patient who received more intensive and coordinated care from Neighborhood Health Plan of Rhode Island, which has allowed him to “get his life back.”

As for concerns about whether this funding is secure after President-elect Donald J. Trump is sworn in, Roberts said that they will watch everything closely. With both Republicans and Democrats supporting innovative health care models that save money. “I anticipate that … this investment in innovation and partnership with states will continue.”

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