February 25, 2016

AG’s office and OHIC seem to be patching things up

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Remember last summer when Attorney General Peter Kilmartin took the Health Insurance Commissioner to court over her decision on Blue Cross rates for individuals? Well, there are now some encouraging signs that these two government agencies are ready to patch things up.

At the House Committee on Corporations meeting Tuesday, representatives from the AG’s office and the Office of the Health Insurance Commissioner (OHIC) spoke in favor of compromise legislation that would allow both agencies to continue to be involved in health insurance rate approvals under certain conditions.

At the center of the issue is the unique process that Blue Cross & Blue Shield of RI (BCBSRI) is subject to when it comes to their individual plan rates.

All Rhode Island health insurers must submit any proposed rate changes to OHIC for approval before they can take effect – an annual process called “Rate Review.” OHIC staff dig deep into the insurers’ justification for their new rates, perform their own actuarial analyses, and solicit public comment from consumers.

This Rate Review process applies to all commercial health plans, except for BCBSRI’s individual market offerings – so-called “DirectPay” plans. That’s because an antiquated law from back when BCBSRI was the only option available to a consumer who wanted to purchase a health plan direct for his or her family.

The law subjects any proposed rate changes for the DirectPay plans to a special and totally separate process that involves the AG’s office and includes a formal hearing with a hired hearing officer where any consumers wanting to speak must testify under oath. These separate processes have confused consumers – we’ve been at Rate Review public comment sessions where DirectPay subscribers have come to speak only be to shut down by the Commissioner, who legally cannot hear their comments.

But the legislation submitted by Representative Mary Duffy Messier on behalf of the AG’s office would subject all health insurers to the same process and call for a formal public hearing and notification of the AG’s office only when the requested rate increase is 10 percent or more. It also allows OHIC to still hold the less formal public input meeting even if a hearing is necessary, allowing greater consumer access to participation in the process.

The AG’s office, OHIC and Blue Cross all signaled general support for the bill when it was heard in committee on Tuesday. The bill was held for further study.

Last year, the Attorney General disagreed with the Commissioner’s decision on the DirectPay rates and took her to court. OHIC ultimately won, but the legal spat held up rate approvals.

Both the Attorney General and the Health Insurance Commissioner are working in good faith to protect consumers, and this legislation lets them both continue to have a role in rate approvals. It will strengthen consumer protection, preserve consumer access to the process, and best of all, it will finally correct an outdated law and subject all health insurers to the same fair process.

February 25, 2016

My toll take

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On February 10th, after 7 hours of debate on the House Floor, I voted for legislation to invest in our state’s crumbling infrastructure and establish a sustainable source of revenue to maintain and repair our roads and bridges. As a proud progressive, I am happy to stand by that vote.

We’ve seen some loud opposition to the truck tolling plan, and I understand where some of this hostility is coming from. For example, I get why the rightwing Center for Freedom and Prosperity would seize on this issue – they, like their benefactors the Koch brothers, are philosophically opposed to the whole premise of taxing private property for the public good, so asking truck companies to pay their fair share for infrastructure maintenance is naturally going to rub them the wrong way. Similarly, it makes sense that my friends and colleagues in the Republican Caucus – who have strenuously fought against every policy I’ve put forward to improve wages for low-income workers, to strengthen the social safety net for struggling families, and to create a more progressive tax structure – would argue against a proposal like this, and instead push for more regressive alternatives like privatizing our roads and bridges.

But I have a lot more trouble wrapping my head around the handful of progressive voices who have come out against this public investment and jobs initiative.

To me, the situation seems pretty straightforward: our infrastructure is in disrepair, and the responsibility for that disrepair is not evenly distributed throughout our state. Big trucks do a lot of damage to our roads and bridges. In fact, a government study found that one 40-ton truck causes as much damage as 9,600 cars. Yet the folks who own these trucks are not paying for the consequences of their damage – all of us are. It’s a negative externality on a public good, not so different from a factory polluting a river or a smoker’s second-hand smoke. And in the same way that I support environmental regulations and smoke-free workplaces, I believe it’s completely reasonable to require the businesses who are deteriorating this shared public good to the greatest extent to pay their fair share for our infrastructure’s upkeep and maintenance.

So I stand by my vote to invest in our state’s economic development, to invest in the livelihood of our workers, and to invest in the the future safety of our young people. And while I would never claim to be the final arbiter of what is and is not progressive (that age-old question we love to argue about on the left), I will say that in my personal opinion, RhodeWorks passes that test easily, and those of us who care passionately about economic, social, and racial justice have better targets for our energy and outrage than the placement of a $20 toll on a million dollar truck.

February 25, 2016February 25, 2016

Domestic violence homicides in Rhode Island are preventable

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During the past ten years, from 2006 to 2015, 54 people lost their lives to domestic violence homicides in Rhode Island over the course of 48 incidents, says a new report from the Rhode Island Coalition Against Domestic Violence (RICADV). Domestic Violence Homicides in Rhode Island, 2006-2015 is a first-of-its-kind report. The report contains key findings, homicide incident descriptions, and recommendations for preventing future domestic violence homicides in Rhode Island.

By analyzing the collective data, the report delivers some key findings:

Domestic violence homicide is a violence against women issue: Of the 45 victims killed in intimate partner homicide incidents, 34 (76 percent) were women.
Guns and domestic violence continue to be a deadly combination: Firearms made already violent situations more deadly. In every incident where a bystander was killed, a gun was used.
Many of the intimate partner homicide incidents shared common elements that are known to indicate a heightened risk of homicide: In 14 of the 41 cases, there were indications that the perpetrator had been stalking the victim, 20 of the 41 perpetrators had been arrested for domestic violence in the past, and in 22 of the 41 cases there was evidence that the victim had already left or was planning to leave when the homicide occurred.

The report offers five recommendations:

Rhode Island must continue to invest in coordinated community response to domestic violence and foster collaboration between law enforcement, courts and victim advocates.
Rhode island must implement dangerousness assessment and screen all domestic violence criminal cases for lethality risk factors.
Rhode Island must pass legislation to prohibit convicted domestic violence perpetrators and perpetrators subject to domestic violence restraining orders from possessing guns.
Rhode Island must pass legislation to strengthen the state’s current laws against stalking and consistently enforce protective orders.
Rhode Island must take steps to stop domestic violence before it happens in the first place and establish a fund that will support evidence-substantiated public health approaches to the primary prevention of domestic violence.

At the press conference to announce the report there were two posters bearing the names of all those murdered in Rhode Island in domestic violence incidents. Two women told heartbreaking stories about losing a family member to domestic violence. In the first, Jami Ouellette talks about her sister Stacy’s death at the hands of her abusive husband. The story is graphic and chilling.

Next, Ann Burke tells of her daughter’s death from intimate partner homicide. A health teacher, Burke has been instrumental in getting the state to teach teens about intimate partner violence, but she has been doing so without any funding since the program began. She co-founded the Lindsay Ann Burke Memorial Fund in he daughter’s memory.

Deborah DeBare, executive director of the RICADV walks us through the report.

Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Kilmartin also spoke. He has been a strong advocate for the prevention of domestic violence.

February 25, 2016

What anti-war activists should protest for: Eric Draitser explains the multi-polar world

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Recently I was talking with a colleague who said he wished that, when there is anti-war protest in Providence, the protesters would be able to offer something a bit more substantial that just slogans and pacific ideals. I agree with this sentiment

To that extent, I recently had the opportunity to speak with Eric Draitser. He is a geopolitical analyst and commentator whose work can be read in CounterPunch, RT television’s website, and a variety of other forums. He currently can be heard weekly delivering the podcast CounterPunch Radio.

Over the next several articles, Draitser will introduce through our conversation a series of concepts and strategies that are now gaining currency within the international geopolitical arena. The theory of a multi-polar world, for our purposes, envisions the end of a world order where the United States is the dominant power in the international political arena. In its place, various regional powers emerge and develop a set of consensus points that are used to dictate a level of peace and stability in the world. In this world-view, the Russian, Chinese, Indian, and Iranian leadership in their spheres of influence help balance out and reduce the occurrence of conflicts.

This is not a new concept and it is one that is quite familiar to figures such as Sen. Jack Reed, the Rhode Island congressional delegate who is considered a liberal despite sitting on a military appropriations committee where he has shoveled billions of dollars into the maw of the military-industrial complex while Rhode Island has above-average unemployment and astounding rates of childhood hunger, homelessness, and poverty. Sen. Reed knows that a multi-polar world would reduce the spending on the Pentagon budget and make some of the social safety net programs proposed by the Bernie Sanders presidential campaign not just tenable but conservative when one considers that over half of our total annual budget goes to fund war. Yet in the name of an antiquated and paranoid Cold War mindset wherein we must fear the Moscow-Peking alliance, America is a shambling, barely-conscious impersonation of the late Roman empire, over-extended and dependent on a semi-privatized contractor military the has wrought chaos, destruction, and death across much of the world while alienating those who would have us as allies.

I do not deny that some of these concepts are jarring at first. The power structure has engineered a clever campaign to make the efforts of our potential allies seem like “imperialism” and “aggression”. It is also vital to understand that these are not apologias for singular individuals or governments, states are always violent systems. It is also not a direct path to the Big Rock Candy Mountain of some wonderful socialist tomorrow. Yet in a world where America is a pariah and loathed by its neighbors due to imperial arrogance and where Jack Reed, Sheldon Whitehouse, and Hillary Clinton are not sending themselves or their loved ones to die in war, consider these ideas with maturity.

February 25, 2016February 25, 2016

Undocumented workers pay $33.4 million in RI taxes and they need drivers licenses

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Sen. Frank Ciccone III and Rep. Anastasia Williams introduced legislation (2016-S 2333 / 2016-H 7610) that would allow the Rhode Island Department of Motor Vehicles to issue driving privilege licenses and permits to applicants unable to establish a lawful presence in the United States. The licenses and permit would not be valid for identification purposes as per the Real ID Act, but would be usable only for the purposes of operating a motor vehicle in Rhode Island.

“We need to ensure that all drivers, regardless of their immigration status, are trained, tested and insured when driving on our roads,” said Ciccone at the press conference to highlight this legislation, “This is a safety issue as well as an economic issue. If the worst was to happen and an accident occurs involving an undocumented person driving, our residents and businesses are protected far better if this legislation is enacted as opposed to the current status quo.” (See the full video of the press conference below.)

Under the rules proposed by Ciccone and Williams, those wanting these licenses and permits would have to have no felony convictions, have lived in Rhode Island for two years and provide proof that they have paid taxes.

As for taxes, a report from the Economic Progress Institute (EPI) demonstrates that “Undocumented immigrants contribute more than $11.6 billion to state and local coffers each year, including $33.4 million in Rhode Island, according to a new study released by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP).”

From the EPI press release:

“The study, Undocumented Immigrants’ State and Local Tax Contributions, also estimates that Rhode Island stands to gain $2.5 million in increased revenue under full implementation of the Obama administration’s 2012 and 2014 executive actions and by more than $7.0 million under comprehensive immigration reform.

“EPI’s Executive Director, Rachel Flum notes that “This report shows that undocumented immigrants are contributing to Rhode Island’s economy through sales, property and income taxes. State law makers should take this into account and approve policies that help these residents live safely in our state until comprehensive immigration reform at the federal level provides a pathway to legal status. Providing driver’s licenses for undocumented residents is one such policy”

“The report found that undocumented immigrants contribute $4.1 million in personal income taxes, $11.1 million in property taxes, and $18.3 million in sales and excise taxes to Rhode Island’s. These tax contributions would be larger if all undocumented immigrants were granted legal status under a comprehensive immigration reform and if President Obama’s 2014 executive action were upheld.

“‘Regardless of the politically contentious nature of immigration reform, the data show undocumented immigrants greatly contribute to our nation’s economy, not just in labor but also with tax dollars,’ said Meg Wiehe, ITEP State Tax Policy Director. ‘With immigration policy playing a key role in state and national debates and President Obama’s 2014 executive action facing review by the Supreme Court accurate information about the tax contributions of undocumented immigrants is needed now more than ever.'”

To view the full report or to find state-specific data, go to www.itep.org/immigration/.

February 25, 2016February 25, 2016

Bernie Sanders tops RI primary signature count; supporters plan further events

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2016-01-02 Bernie Sanders 334 — Bernie Sanders in Worcester

After successfully getting the most signatures of any presidential primary candidate, Bernie Sanders’ Rhode Island campaign will now focus on getting a slate of delegates on the ballot for Bernie.

Sanders supporters gathered 3451 official signatures, Hillary Clinton supporters, backed by the RI Democratic Party, gathered only 1802. On the Republican side Trump supporters gathered 3110 signatures, followed by 2902 for Jeb Bush, who has already dropped out of the race.

There will be events throughout the state where people can go to sign nomination papers for those seeking to be delegates. Our Kickoff event will be from 7:00pm-9:00pm on Thursday, February 25th at the Wild Colonial in Providence on South Water Street.

For a listing of all the signature signing events or to volunteer for Bernie 2016 campaign go to www.Berniesanders.com or to this Facebook page.

Or contact
Lauren Niedel
RI State Contact
401-710-7600
lniedel@gmail.com