Rhode Island’s Medicaid experiment draws raves, suspicion, By Tony Pugh, May 24, 2011, Miami Herald: “After six months in hospitals and nursing homes rehabbing from a stroke, Elvira Tesarek of Warren, R.I., had a decision to make: Either Medicaid would move her to a long-term nursing facility, or she could simply go home. For Tesarek, the choice was obvious. Instead of costly institutional care, Medicaid pays for a nurse’s aide to visit Tesarek at home five days a week to help with meals and household chores. A registered nurse comes three times a week to prepare her medications. A physical therapist visits twice weekly, and a speech therapist makes occasional home visits as well. Nearly 1,300 elderly and disabled adults, such as Tesarek, have been able to leave Rhode Island nursing facilities or avoid them altogether under a pilot program designed to cut spending on Medicaid, the federal-state health plan for the poor. Many states steer certain Medicaid patients into assisted-living and home-care settings, where they have greater independence. Rhode Island’s effort, however, has garnered national attention in conservative circles not because of what it does but because of how it’s funded…”
Poverty-related issues in the news, from the Institute for Research on Poverty