News
True Pandemic Preparedness:
Health Care Reform Now
by Patrick Kennedy
for The
Huffington Post
The recent outbreak of the swine flu serves as a stark reminder about the need for comprehensive health care reform in this country. Every citizen in this country should have access to affordable, high quality health care. Given the recent economic downturn, the group of nearly 46 million Americans without health insurance has grown by perhaps as many as 4 million. This population, and the larger group with under-insurance in our country, are highly susceptible to any pandemic outbreak. They are less likely to receive early preventative care, early diagnosis, early treatment, and due to financial fears, are less likely to take sick time from work. Not only is such a large group of Americans without the resources to combat a threat such as a pandemic flu for their own health safety, but having such a large group of people without access to proper care dramatically increases the risk of transmission to the rest of the population. The realities of biology will not let us separate into "us" versus "them" categories.
[read the rest in The Huffington Post]
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Dear Friends:
It is a privilege and honor to be re-elected by
the people of Rhode Island's 1st Congressional District for another
term. Here in Rhode Island, voter turnout set a new record, demonstrating
a renewed sense of civic participation among our state's citizens.
I have talked with many Rhode Islanders about their concerns
on many critical issues that are affecting their daily lives
and the future for their children: the economy, health care,
education and our nation's stagnant energy policies. I am eager
to get back to work and tackle these issues with President-elect
Obama and my colleagues on both sides of the aisle in Congress.
It is time to rework our economy by rebuilding the middle class,
investing in our nation's transportation infrastructure, and
developing a strategy for energy independence. We also need to
protect the fabric of our society by ensuring that all Americans
have access to affordable, quality health care and putting children
first by investing in education.
Mindful of this week's historic election, I am confident that
by working together we as a nation will surmount the challenges
ahead and emerge on a course that will enhance the future for
generations to come.
Thank you again for your support. If you would like to stay in
touch, please visit
my web site and register to receive my e-newsletters. And
as always, I hope you will share your ideas and feedback with
me.
Sincerely,
Patrick J. Kennedy
Member of Congress
Editorial: Kennedy for
Congress
Providence Journal
Amid the turmoil of the global financial crisis, Congress managed to pass a bill requiring health insurers to treat mental illness on a par with physical ailments. Rep. Patrick Kennedy may justifiably claim this long-sought breakthrough as the signature achievement of his just-completed term.
While the parity law has many fathers (including a prior but loophole-filled act approved in 1996), Representative Kennedy gave it a personal face, along with a large share of his energy. On other issues, he has generally cast liberal votes, reinforcing his image as a friend to Native Americans and immigrants, among others. He voted for the financial bailout package but has correctly said that in the next session, Congress must address the regulatory failures that helped lead to the crisis.
… In his latest term, the congressman has shown he can be effective on behalf of the vulnerable, an important skill just now. Patrick Kennedy has a proven capacity to work with his party’s leadership as well as across the aisle. He earns our endorsement.
[read the editorial in the Providence Journal]
Editorial: A win on mental illness
Providence Journal
Larded with so many needless extras, the $700 billion bailout bill was a hold-your-nose affair. But at least one attachment should serve Americans well: the provision requiring insurers to cover mental illness in the same manner as other ailments.
The so-called parity bill has been a work-in-progress for at least a decade. Early champions were the late Democratic Sen. Paul Wellstone, of Minnesota, whose brother suffered from severe mental illness, and Sen. Pete Domenici, a New Mexico Republican whose daughter has schizophrenia. But skepticism over the elusive nature of such afflictions was hard to overcome. Foes also feared spiraling new costs that would make health insurance even less affordable than it is now.
Yet so many Americans or their loved ones have experienced the anguish of mental illness, along with the sting of an indifferent health-care system, that the drive for change persisted. At the same time, researchers kept finding new links between biology and such diseases as autism and bipolar disorder. New treatments were found, and proved effective. Experience with managed care helped demonstrate that mental-health coverage could be affordable.
In March, Rhode Island Democrat Patrick Kennedy helped push a new parity bill through the House. Mr. Kennedy has used his own illness as an example of why coverage is needed. He has been treated for bipolar disorder and drug addiction, and credits the generous coverage enjoyed by members of Congress for his recovery. Attempts to reconcile the House measure with a more restrictive Senate bill finally produced a compromise, and at the eleventh hour, the parity bill was added to the bailout.
Once the bill takes effect (generally in 2010), millions of Americans will find it easier to get help with such devastating illnesses as depression and alcohol addiction. Appropriate care is not only the most compassionate response to such illnesses; it is more rational than trying to handle the untreated through the schools, social-service agencies, homeless shelters and the criminal-justice system. In the end, treatment may turn out to be the least costly approach to much of what ails us. Now and then, Congress gets something right.
[read the editorial in the Providence Journal]
Rep. Kennedy’s campaign obtains ‘presidential’ glitz
as he’s joined by actor Martin Sheen
By Katherine Gregg
Journal State House Bureau
PROVIDENCE — Bouncing from one campaign stop to another yesterday with Democratic party cheerleader, actor and West Wing “President” Martin Sheen at his side, U.S. Rep. Patrick Kennedy lashed into Republican Governor Carcieri for his attempts to win a federal waiver that would “tear a hole” in the state’s Medicaid safety-net for the low-income elderly and disabled.
Standing under a Bingo scoreboard in the linoleum-tiled lunchroom of the Harborview Manor in East Providence, Kennedy assailed the national GOP first for espousing policies that, in his view, let polluters pollute and the national financial market “run wild” in the name of “deregulation.” Then, he turned his sights on Carcieri.
“Medicaid, of course, is the safety net and you know our governor is trying to find a way to waiver around that which would absolutely undermine the whole nature of Medicaid,” he said.
“Talk about deregulation,” he said. “That’s the ultimate in deregulation. … It’s eliminating the protections for people with disabilities … just so he can save a few dollars in the budget … and be able to put a priority on people who are more politically powerful than the most disabled in our society.”
In a brief interview before he headed out to his next campaign stop, Kennedy said he was briefed by officials from the federal agency that would have to sign off on the Carcieri administration’s waiver request and they told him “they had not yet looked at the state’s application and they had not begun negotiations with the state.”
[read the rest in the Providence Journal]
Chamber bringing together business, banks
By BY ED COONEY, DONNA CUPELO and LAURIE
WHITE
America's cruel economic times are even crueler in Rhode Island. The state's unemployment rate is the highest in the nation, while subprime mortgage foreclosures are the steepest in New England. People are hurting and confidence is brittle.
Continued volatility in the global equity markets, coupled with uncertainty in the worldwide credit markets, has set off a financial crisis that will take years to unwind not just here in Rhode Island but throughout the country.
Passage by Congress of the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 is an important first step toward restoring confidence and getting credit flowing again to consumers and businesses.
Rhode Island's congressional delegation was at the forefront of the debate on Capitol Hill and brought the concerns of Main Street to the table with precision and passion. Through ongoing meetings with the small businesses that form the bedrock of the Greater Providence Chamber of Commerce membership, Senators Jack Reed and Sheldon Whitehouse and Representatives Patrick Kennedy and James Langevin understood how the crisis was reverberating at home. Each of them was attuned to the fact that everyday transactions, ranging from student loans to inventory lines-of-credit, were in danger of being choked as a form of gridlock took hold.
Make no mistake about it: the financial rescue plan as finally drafted by the federal government is dramatic in its scope. But, hopefully, its power as a salve to our economic wounds will be equally dramatic.
In the wake of all this upheaval, the Greater Providence Chamber of Commerce and its member financial institutions are committed to energizing and rebooting our economy. The Chamber will bring together representatives from local financial institutions for a seminar focused on How Small Business Can Access Credit in a Challenging Economy, Wednesday from 8 to 9:30 a.m.
The interactive panel discussion, moderated by Richard Horan, senior managing director of the Slater Technology Fund, will cover topics ranging from access to capital to how to best position a small business to ride out economic ebb and flows. The forum will also touch on cash management and maintaining an optimum credit profile. Despite tightening lending standards, it is important to emphasize that there is capital in the marketplace for Rhode Island's small businesses. Panelists will include senior representatives from Citizens Bank, Sovereign Bank, The Washington Trust Company, Bank RI, Webster Bank, Bank of America and Coastway Credit Union. Representatives of the U.S. Small Business Administration will also be on hand to offer guidance on loan guarantees offered by the federal government. One-on-one consultations will occur at the end of the session.
No, the economic rebound won't be instantaneous. It will take time. And, yes, there will be plenty of opportunity to plug in needed reforms to prevent the recurrence of such calamities. But in the meantime, Main Street must continue to plug away, to innovate, and to compete. Forums like this will help. We have no choice.
Ed Cooney is chair of the Greater Providence Chamber of Commerce, Donna Cupelo is chair of the Chamber's Federal Affairs Committee and Laurie White is president of the Chamber.
[this article appeared in the Providence Journal on 10/26 but is not available online]
Congress Approves Mental Health Bill
Private Insurers Would Provide More
Benefits
By Lyndsey Layton
Washington Post Staff Writer
Congress approved legislation yesterday that would require private insurers to provide the same level of benefits for mental illness as they do for physical maladies, a change lauded by advocates as a great shift in the nation's understanding of mental health.
"We've always had a stigma, sort of like mental illness is a character flaw," said Rep. Patrick J. Kennedy (D-R.I.), who has struggled with drug and alcohol addiction and co-sponsored the House version with Rep. Jim Ramstad (R-Minn.), a recovering alcoholic. "But now science has moved forward, and we can see the complexities in the brain that lead to eating disorders, compulsive disorders. All these connections are being made, the science is just becoming so firm. And it destroys the myth that this stuff is a choice."
[read the rest in the Washington Post]
Navy commits to buying third Zumwalt destroyer
By Paul Edward Parker
Providence Journal Staff Writer
Navy officials have committed to buying three of a new high-tech destroyer, about a month after telling Congress the service would buy only two of the ships, whose electronics are being built by Raytheon Co. workers in Rhode Island and elsewhere.
Navy Secretary Donald C. Winter and Adm. Gary Roughead, the chief of naval operations, announced their intentions in a letter to Rep. Patrick J. Kennedy, whose office made a copy of the letter public yesterday.
"We obviously are thrilled, absolutely thrilled by this news. This gives us an opportunity to fight another day," Kennedy said in an interview yesterday.
Kennedy said he met with Roughead in Rhode Island and in Washington and met with Winter to push the case for the Zumwalt-class destroyers. "We had a lot of work to do to fight the Navy on this," Kennedy said. "We put on a very strong, full-court press and had our facts straight."
[read the rest in the Providence Journal]
Oh So Close to Mental Health Parity
New York Times editorial
Congress is within a whisker of passing a sound and fair-minded bill to require that group health insurance coverage for mental illness and substance abuse be provided on the same terms as coverage for physical illnesses. It would be a shame if the legislation, which caps more than a decade of struggle to achieve mental health parity in insurance coverage, were allowed to die while Congressional energies are focused on the all-consuming economic crisis.
The bill would not require employers or health plans to cover mental illness or drug or alcohol abuse. But if they do, the treatment limits and financial requirements could be no more restrictive than those that apply to medical or surgical benefits. A 1996 law had required parity in setting annual and lifetime spending limits, but insurers found ways to circumvent it. The new bill closes loopholes by requiring parity in deductibles, co-payments and out-of-pocket expenses - and in setting treatment limitations, such as the maximum number of doctor visits and days of coverage allowed.
The bill is endorsed by President Bush, business groups, insurance companies, the medical community and mental health advocates. Both the House, in a stand-alone bill, and the Senate, as part of a broader tax relief bill, have approved it by large margins. But it requires a final shove because the measure is snarled in a broader legislative struggle over how to pay for tax revenues that would be reduced by this measure and others. Is there a statesman who can push this worthy parity legislation through to final passage before adjournment?
[read
the editorial in the New York Times]
Kennedy’s mental-health bill rejuvenated in House, Senate votes
BY JOHN E. MULLIGAN
Providence
Journal Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON — After languishing for months in disagreements over how to pay for it, Rep. Patrick J. Kennedy’s signature mental-health bill was rejuvenated yesterday in separate House and Senate votes.
But enactment of the mental-health parity bill is far from a sure thing as Congress rushes to bail out the financial system, come up with the money to keep the government running and finish the rest of its “must” legislation before it adjourns for the remainder of the campaign season.
In keeping with this week’s frantic atmosphere on Capitol Hill, the parliamentary outlook for Kennedy’s measure is complex. Ostensibly, the chances for a bill-signing ceremony with President Bush look good, because Kennedy and his allies have mustered overwhelming support in both houses for their effort to make insurance companies cover mental illness in the same way as physical illness.
[read the rest in the Providence Journal]
Kennedy delivers $188,000 for communications
by Philip Marcelo
in the Providence Journal
CUMBERLAND — U.S. Rep. Patrick J. Kennedy yesterday delivered a $188,000 check to town officials to upgrade the Police Department communications system through the purchase of new computers and radio systems for police officers and dispatchers.
Police Chief John R. Desmarais said that the department
expects to invest the money in a system that transfers signals
via microwave rather than phone lines. The system, which will
be the first of its kind in the state, will allow the department
to coordinate police, fire and rescue personnel even in inclement
weather, when communication is often hindered under the current
system, he said.
[read
the rest in the Providence Journal]
Kennedy answers questions from Street Sights
Read Congressman Kennedy's responses to questions from Street Sights, a publication that deals with the issues that affect the homeless and formerly homeless community in Rhode Island.
[read the interview in Street Sights]