McKee announces primary care system improvement
strategies. AG Neronha calls the plans "slapdash."
Steve Ahlquist
From two press releases:
Rhode Island Governor Daniel McKee announced
a series of short- and long-term strategies to strengthen Rhode Island’s
primary care system, which were brutally characterized by Attorney
General Peter Neronha as a “slapdash response to political and
public pressure because of the dissolution of Anchor
Medical, and unfortunately, I expected nothing more.”
“In the changing landscape of health care, we need to take
proactive steps to ensure our residents have continued access to primary care,”
said Governor McKee. “My Health Care System Planning Cabinet will
continue to identify strategies to strengthen the health care workforce, create
stronger fiscal oversight, and support practices in expanding their patient
base.”
You can read the rest of the Governor’s press release at the
footnote.1
“Last week, [the Governor] floated the idea of monitoring
quarterly financials of physician groups, which is (1) not enough and (2)
something the Governor could have, and should have, been doing all along,” said
Attorney General Neronha. “Today’s press conference offered more of the same,
with the Governor hanging his hat on promises of future studies and reviews,
demonstrating a deep misunderstanding of the issues at hand.
“He began by calling Rhode Island’s health care system one
of the best in the nation, once again showing how out of touch this Governor is
with the reality of the situation. Additionally, an incremental and vaguely
defined grant program targeted at paying administrative costs rather than
increasing reimbursement to primary care physicians will not be enough to
provide the sustained investment needed. Our primary care providers are
overworked and overburdened by a state health care system that doesn’t support
them. Our residents are scrambling to find primary care physicians to care for
them through illnesses and fill prescriptions for life-saving medications. We
are in crisis. And some of us have been sounding the alarm for years.
“We will never fix this crisis through talking points and
half-baked proposals, like a woefully underfunded loan forgiveness program,
which would forgive loans for less than two physicians. And we don’t need more
posturing and subgroups.