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Thursday Dec 12, 2013
North Kingstown, RI – Good morning, Ocean State. This is Bob Plain, editor and publisher of the RI Future blog podcasting to you from The Hideaway on the banks of the Mattatuxet River behind the Shady Lea Mill in North Kingstown, Rhode Island.
It’s Thursday, December 12 … Day 11, we hope, of the Exile on Wamponaug Trail. Notoriously nasty WPRO misogynist John DePetro has been off the air for all of December so far for calling female labor activists whores on the radio. As I wrote yesterday, Rhode Island couldn’t have asked for a nicer Christmas present from our brothers and sisters in the organized labor movement … so if you’re glad December has been DePetro-free, thank a union member.
The non-profit that owns Rhode Island Hospital and other Rhode Island hospitals is not profitable, reports WPRI. A Tim White/Ted Nesi investigation uncovers that the only thing that kept Lifespan in the black this year was because it purchased a mental health firm with money in the bank. Lifespan, you will remember is the company that paid CEO George Vecchione $8 million. Had Vecchione been able to eak by on just $2 million a year, the hospital management company would have been made money. Can we please all agree we’ve got a real economic malfunction when a hospital non-profit loses millions while the CEO earns millions.
“It’s too fast. It’s too drastic. And it’s not good policy practice.” That’s what Camilo Viveiros said about the state public utilities commission proposal to make it easier to shut off heat and electricity for poor people who are behind on their bills.
A great new analysis by Business Insider shows only five states in the nation are doing better than Rhode Island at getting folks signed up for Obamacare … the six top states, in order, are: Vermont, Connecticut, Kentucky, California, Washington and then the Ocean State.
Another snowy owl has been injured in Rhode Island, this one on Rt. 95.
GoLocalProv reports that the commercial fishing industry in Rhode Island could become extinct.
This from Washington Post education blogger Valerie Strauss: “Education reform policy around the country is increasingly being made in secret or without public input — and with a lot of private philanthropic money.”
Rhode Island taxpayers already pays for text books at private schools … why we do this I have no idea.
“Federal workers have reason to be nervous,” reports National Public Radio. That’s because the new budget deal will effectively cut their pensions by making employees contribute more.
And JP Morgan, the too big too fail bank that put low-income Rhode Islanders personal information at risk, was also complicit with Bernie Madoff’s scam … The New York Times reports that the big bank may have to pay $2 billion for turning a blind eye to Madoff’s ponzi scheme.