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This Just In

The worst of your new state budget

You’ll be Safe with Whomever
Maybe. Instead of throwing 2011 families off state-subsidized day care, as Carcieri proposed, the House and Senate cut the number in half. This means that only 1067 families earning modest incomes (between $30,852 and $38,565 for a family of three) will lose subsidies. Day-care can cost a worker with a school-aged child and a toddler as much $15,000 a year, about half the parent’s income. Day-care can offer a lot for kids, including a head start on education, good nutrition, and responsible oversight. Without significant help, parents’ alternatives are to quit work or leave the children with unlicensed and sometimes dangerous relatives, friends, or strangers.
 
Finally, there’ll be no picnic for Gramps and Grandma, either. The new budget asks 14,000 patients, mostly seniors, who qualify for the federal Supplemental Security Income program and get prescriptions through Medicaid to fork over $1 or $3 drug co-pays.
 
Sounds like peanuts, unless you get a lot of prescriptions. Kate Brewster, of the Poverty Institute at Rhode Island College’s School of Social Work, says it’s not rare for someone to need 10 to 15 prescriptions a month. So someone poor enough to be on SSI might have $10 to $45 less to keep the lights and heat on.
 
Rhode Island has a track record of effective programs to help its most imperiled residents — the RIte Care health insurance program for low-income families is the usual example. And Carcieri and the General Assembly have kept much of these systems going.
 
But even a kid — especially a kid — can see where things are headed.

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