RIte Care dropping health coverage for 6,500 parents; children will retain coverage

By: Felice J. Freyer Notices have gone out to 6,500 people, alerting them that their coverage under the state’s RIte Care program will end this year. These people are all parents of children covered by RIte Care; the parents, but not the children, were cut from the rolls by a legislative decision. The parents will be encouraged to enroll in …

RI has not moved needle on poverty, uninsured

By: Bob Plain Rhode Island hasn’t moved the needle for people living in poverty, according to an analysis of new Census data by the Economic Progress Institute. The Ocean State still has the second highest poverty rate in New England, behind only Maine, with 13.7 percent of residents living below the poverty standard. There are nearly 140,000 Rhode Islanders who …

Ferguson tapped for health post

Christine C. Ferguson, who worked for Governor Chafee’s late father, to serve as director of health benefits exchange By FELICE J. FREYER JOURNAL MEDICAL WRITER Governor Chafee has chosen a professor and former state health official –– whose long career in health-care policy began as an aide to Chafee’s late father –– to serve as director of Rhode Island’s Health Benefits …

HSRI open enrollment continues despite ACA constitutional challenge

PROVIDENCE — The first weekday after Fort Worth Federal District Court Judge Reed O’Connor ruled the Affordable Care Act unconstitutional, arguing the zeroed-out individual mandate neutralizes it as an exercise of Congress’s tax power, HealthSource RI health care open enrollment proceeded unperturbed. Monday, Zachary W. Sherman, director of HealthSource RI, the state’s ACA health insurance exchange, said the challenge does not …

R.I. group denounces Texas court’s ruling on Affordable Care Act

PROVIDENCE — A broad coalition of community and advocacy organizations on Monday sharply criticized the decision last week by a federal judge in Texas ruling the Affordable Care Act — Obamacare — unconstitutional. “Friday’s misguided decision by District Court Judge Reed O’Connor in Texas v. Azar striking down the entirety of the Affordable Care Act marks a devastating blow to …

Report: Many Rhode Islanders can’t make ends meet

PROVIDENCE – Two-thirds of single-parent families and large numbers of other Rhode Islanders don’t earn enough to cover basic expenses, according to a report released Thursday by the Economic Progress Institute. The Providence-based research and policy group used the findings to call for a $15 an hour minimum wage in the Ocean State to help close the gap between what …