WARWICK – Mark your calendars! On Monday morning, May 5, from 8 a.m. to 10 a.m., Rhode Island KIDS COUNT will hold its 31^st annual breakfast celebration at the Crowne Plaza, honoring more than three decades of the publication of its Factbook, an annual “Rite of Spring” passage that tracks the health and well being of parents and children in Rhode Island.

This year, the sold-out gathering promises to mark an opportunity to focus once again on the needs of children and family in Rhode Island, with strong endorsements by key political leaders, providers and community advocates, honoring the publication of what is considered to be the best data compendium in the state, tracking more than 70 metrics measuring how children and families are doing — stories that capture both the good, the bad, and the ugly.

In advance of this year’s breakfast Factbook celebration, Rhode Island KIDS COUNT hosted the Raising Rhode Island Kickoff campaign event on Tuesday, March 13, at the State House Library, which featured Kimberlynn, accompanied by her two-week-old daughter. They stole the show.

At the kickoff event, Kimberlynn offered the following testimony in support of the one of the cornerstones of the Rhode Island KIDS COUNT 2025 legislative advocacy program: increasing the financial protection of Rhode Island’s poorest children and families by increasing the monthly benefit to 50 percent of the federal poverty level and implementing a cost-of-living adjustment. [Emphasis added]

“The truth is that there are young mothers like me who want to better themselves, go back to school and build a stable future. But instead of having the chance to invest in education and career training, we’re forced into low-wage jobs that don’t allow us to escape poverty,” Kimberlynn said. “That’s why I’m urging policy makers to increase the monthly cash assistance for families like mine. This investment will allow young mothers to stay in school, gain skills and break the cycle of poverty instead of struggling to survive. Please stand with mothers and support these bills.” Is anyone listening?

As Jessica Vega, Senior Advocacy & Community Engagement Manager at Rhode Island KIDS COUNT, explained the importance of the sought-after change: “This increase would be funded directly from the TANF federal block grant that the state receives annually [about $97 million]. For the fourteenth consecutive year, no state general revenue [emphasis added] has been allocated for cash assistance. The most recent data [2021] shows that Rhode Island spent only 12 percent of its TANF funds on cash assistance — significantly lower than the national average of 23 percent.” 

Just the facts, right?    
But this year, all political bets are off when it comes to calculating the state budget, as President Trump and his minions in Congress are attempting to slash federal payments for Medicaid support.

As detailed in a recent story by Steve Ahlquist reporting about a gathering held at Butler Hospital on Tuesday, March 18, detailing the threats to the state’s children and families from potential cuts of the state’s Medicaid programs, Dr. Paul Wallace, medical director of The Providence Center, laid bare the threats facing Rhode Island’s children and families.

“The Providence Center is a certified community behavioral health clinic, which means we offer mental health and substance use services to any Rhode Islander who walks through our doors,” Dr. Wallace said. “We essentially act as the safety net for Providence in terms of mental health services, and we are the largest clinic of our kind in Rhode Island, serving nearly 9000 patients annually, approximately 70 percent of whom are on Medicaid.”

Dr. Wallace continued: “We offer a long list of services, including therapy, case management, psychiatric medications, crisis response, substance use treatment, and supportive housing, and we collaborate with many local partners, including Providence Fire and Police, Providence Public Schools, community health organizations like PCHC and Open Door Health, and every hospital in the state. It is our mission to serve the community in Rhode Island and especially Providence, and we are proud to be a cornerstone for mental healthcare in the state.”

Dr. Wallace talked about the honor of being entrusted by his patients as a psychiatrist while at the same time, sounding the alarm of the potential harm that cuts to Medicaid could cause.

“I’m proud to serve as the medical director of The Providence Center, but it’s an even greater honor to be entrusted by my patients as their psychiatrist. My patients trust me to listen to their stories and help them live better lives, and they are why I am here speaking to you today.”

Dr. Wallace continued: “The life-changing mental health services we offer thousands of Rhode Islanders would be impossible without Medicaid, Medicare, and federal grants funded by our tax dollars. What better use of tax dollars is there than enhancing the health and wellbeing of our communities? Not only does defunding Medicaid mean defunding The Providence Center and every community clinic like it, but it means stripping poor, working-class, and middle-class Rhode Islanders of their health insurance and other sources of support that allow them to maintain a decent standard of living.”

Dr. Wallace offered his warning as someone with a front-row seat to the potential crisis. “Let me tell you, as someone with a front-row seat, that my patients’ lives are incredibly precarious already, and my patients cannot afford to lose what little they have. Most can barely afford their rent, utilities, and grocery bills, and they live in fear that they are ‘this’ close to it all tumbling down. All of this fear and stress has been taking a devastating toll on my patients’ mental health, and in our current climate, mental health workers, and frankly all health care workers, are fighting an uphill battle. We are devoted to our work, but we are begging for your support. It is unbearable to watch our patients’ lives spiral due to factors outside of their control and ours, and so we turn to advocacy on their behalf.”

A deleterious, ripple effect.  
Dr. Wallace warned of the deleterious ripple effect that defunding Medicaid would have through every corner of the state.

“I know what I’ve already said should be enough to convince any decent Rhode Islander of Medicaid’s worth, that it is worth funding the program that provides access to mental health and medical services to a third of Rhode Island’s population and allows community behavioral health centers like The Providence Center to exist. But in case you need any more convincing, I’ll add one last warning based on my unique vantage point as someone who bears witness to my individual patients’ lives and also sees our health care system writ large. Defunding Medicaid will have deleterious effects that ripple throughout every corner of our state, far beyond Medicaid recipients. Not providing timely access to mental health services and substance use treatment means people will be turning up to hospitals in worse shape than ever. Police officers and firefighters will be responding to one mental health crisis after another. People will struggle to work and pay rent, will lose their housing, and end up on the streets. Children will drop out of school. Suicides and overdoses will increase. People will become sicker and die sooner from health conditions. Even if you yourself do not receive Medicaid, you will see the effects of Medicaid cuts in your community, and it will be heartbreaking.”

Dr. Wallace concluded: “I don’t revel in sounding this alarm, but I do it as a favor to all of us before it’s too late. We must do everything we can to protect Medicaid and protect all Rhode Islanders.”

Infusion scheduled    
There is a scary similarity between the modern-day infusion laboratory and the clinical laboratory envisioned in Aldous Huxley’s “Brave New World,” as a steady stream of patients await treatments to cure whatever ails them with expensive pharmacological treatments.

Every six months, I am thankful that I can receive such treatments in an attempt to control the ravages of a rogue anti-body, GAD-65, which has been attacking the myelin in my thoracic region, limiting my ability to walk for the last six years.

With each new treatment comes a wave of anxiety, irrational or not, that accompanies the anticipation of each infusion treatment and the way that my body will hopefully respond to it.

My recent inadvertent dance with a full-sized refrigerator in my apartment, which resulted in my spending three weeks in short-term rehab at a skilled nursing facility, has provided me with a new perspective on the delivery of health care system in Rhode Island. I have become an “expert” about all the ways that our current health care delivery system works – and does not work – in our post-pandemic world we inhabit together.

I have become dependent on ordering my groceries online, only to be dismayed when groceries keep getting sent to the wrong address, despite the fact that the store and my apartment are located less than three blocks away. Three times in five days is not a healthy batting average for the wrong delivery address. Apparently the problem is a defective GPS code. So it goes.

What’s worse is that I am disabled. The promised doorstep delivery doesn’t work very well for me, as I must maneuver from the door of my apartment to the outside door with my walker to retrieve the numerous groceries. Can you say “Ouch!” and curse very loudly?

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, insulated from the outside world, I keep reading how the state is grappling with the pending catastrophic results from federal efforts to cut back on Federal Medicaid services. Really?

In Rhode Island, that translates to nearly one-third of all health services falling off the proverbial cliff.

[Editor's Note: I recall trying to explain the problems of plutonium when I taught Rhetoric to freshman students at UMass Amherst in the spring of 1978, given that plutonium had a half-life of some 20,000 years and its extremely violatile temperatures required it to be cooled for more than 10,000 years. One student’s response: “Great! All we need to do is place a small bit of plutonium in everyone’s radiator.”]

I’m afraid that a similar lack of comprehension still afflicts some state and federal officials, who apparently believe we can balance the budget without raising taxes by axing health care services to poor folks. Raise your hand if you are volunteering to have plutonium put in your family’s radiator for the next 20,000 years?