Governor Donald L. Carcieri was featured in the June 2009 volume of Caring magazine, a publication of the National Association for Home Care and Hospice. The article discusses the Governor’s focus on health care, and more specifically, the Global Medicaid Waiver which allows Rhode Island’s Medicaid program to be rebuilt on a foundation of home and community-based care.

Caring Magazine escorted Governor Carcieri and Corrine Russo, Director for the Department of Elderly Affairs, to the home of 78-year-old Concetta Ball, who has suffered strokes in the past three years. Nurses and therapists from the Visiting Nurse Service of Greater Rhode Island have been successful twice, in the first case restoring her speech and in the second her ability to walk.

After the visit with Concetta Ball, Caring Magazine proceeded to ask the Governor questions about his forward thinking health care policy and the groundbreaking Global Medicaid Waiver. The Governor stresses the importance of the global waiver for home health care stating that, “What’s happened over the years is that people who have been well off have been able to finance that kind of care for themselves. But people who are dependent or aren’t eligible for Medicaid haven’t had that right. This is the whole point of our global waiver. You get the advantages of better outcomes and lower costs because it’s actually less expensive in the long term to keep people in their homes.”

Related links

• Caring magazine article