PROVIDENCE, R.I. — With only a few months left in office, Rhode Island Attorney General Peter F. Neronha laid out two big health care ideas in Providence on Thursday: a public insurance plan run by the state and a top to bottom reshuffle of the agencies that oversee health care.
Under the reorganization, Rhode Island’s Executive Office of Health and Human Services would be eliminated. In its place would come two cabinet agencies. A new Health Administration and Financing Agency would take on oversight now spread across the Department of Health, Medicaid, the health insurance commissioner’s office, HealthSource RI and the behavioral health department. A Human Services Agency would handle child welfare, public assistance, aging and veterans programs.
A separate independent Office of Health Policy and Planning would gather data and plan for the long term. The attorney general’s office put its yearly cost at roughly $10 million to $12 million.
The insurance plan, developed with researchers at the Brown University School of Public Health, would be sold to individuals and employers and compete with private carriers. Subsidies alone would cost about $398 million a year, and the office projects close to 134,000 Rhode Islanders could sign up by 2028, the earliest it could start. Medicare and Medicaid would stay as they are, and Neronha said it is not a single payer plan.
Both ideas need approval from the General Assembly. The office has drafted bills, but no sponsors have signed on. Senate Health and Human Services chair Melissa Murray said the committee expects to review the proposals in the 2027 session.
Neronha is term limited and leaves office in January. The race to replace him is on next week’s ballot.
Filed under: Providence RI Health News
