Rhode Island Lieutenant Governor Offers Health Reform Plan

Rhode Island Lt. Gov. Charles Fogarty (D) on Tuesday unveiled a plan to reform the state's health care system, the Providence Journal reports. Under the plan, titled "Health Care Reform 2004: Moving Toward Excellence," the state would:

• Create a prescription drug discount program for residents whose annual incomes are less than 350% of the federal poverty level;
  
• Introduce limits on which drugs Medicaid will cover;
  
• Secure lower prices on medications that the state buys by centralizing purchases from the state Department of Human Services, Department of Corrections, Department of Elderly Affairs and the Department of Mental Health, Retardation and Hospitals;
  
• Create a health care purchasing office to buy and administer state employees' health benefits;
  
• Establish a state-sponsored health plan for small business workers and self-employed people;
  
• Expand RIte Care, the state's Medicaid program, to residents up to age 24;
  
• Create a program to encourage uninsured people to seek treatment from primary care providers rather than in emergency rooms;
  
• Coordinate efforts to convert all medical records into an electronic format;
  
• Form a Primary Care Task Force to assess whether the state has enough primary care physicians, whether they receive sufficient salaries and how the system can improve; and
  
• Strengthen state oversight of health insurers.
  

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Fogarty did not provide a cost estimate for the plan, but he said, "The costliest option is to do nothing. That's not an option that I support." State Rep. Steven Costantino (D), deputy chair of the state House Finance Committee, said, "The budget and health care ... are going to be the two issues that drive the Assembly." The Assembly is likely to receive other health care proposals from a health care task force assembled in October by Secretary of State Matt Brown; a joint legislative oversight commission on health care created several years ago; a task force on health care that Gov. Don Carcieri (R) will appoint soon; and the Heinz Foundation, which is investigating prescription drug access. State House Speaker William Murphy (D) said it would be "premature" to endorse Fogarty's proposal, the Journal reports. State Senate President William Irons (D) and a spokesperson for Carcieri said they had not had a chance to study the proposal (Freyer, Providence Journal, 12/3).