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Giovanni Feroce, Republican candidate for Governor, did not mince words following reports that the Raimondo administration failed to file time-sensitive appeal in a court case involving dozens of nursing homes in the state. Feroce believes that Raimondo is lying to the public in her responses.
"The money owed is not the result of missing an appeal deadline but a poor decision back in 2016, and repeated in 2017, to maintain the cuts in reduced rates as part of the budget," said Feroce in a statement. "She refuses to own her lack of leadership training and experience and thus tries to suggest it is some step in a process that was missed."
The reduced Medicaid fees, cutting the rate by 2 percent was part of "The Reinventing Medicaid Act of 2015". Under the law, the rate cut was only to last for 12 months, then expire in 2016. R.I. EOHHS had agreed that the rate cut should end, then apparently changed their mind, according to Feroce. The nursing homes then attempted to end the rate cut through administrative hearings, but their claims were rejected by EOHHS, which ran the administrative hearings. The nursing homes then sued in R.I. Superior Court in 2017. In a ruling issued on April 9, 2018, the judge ruled in favor of the nursing homes that continuing the rate cut was illegal. The state then filed an appeal but there was an almost impossible likelihood of success. The missed deadline just brought it to a faster conclusion but not a different result, Feroce continued to describe the situation. "Governor Raimondo has built her budgets by hurting our elderly and most needy by refusing to pay money owed to nursing homes to fund her culture of 'free this and free that,' pandering for votes and publicizing one-off corporate tax deals that are resulting in subsidized business models taking roots in our state. She must be removed and high-level management needs to take over," said Feroce. |
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