Tag Archives for Congressional District 1

Age beat writer gives us his most important columns in 2023

Published in Blackstone Valley Call and Times, on January 1, 2024

Over the years, like many of the nation’s news organizations, The Pawtucket Times, created an ‘Age Beat’ column in 2002 that allowed this writer for several years to cover a myriad of aging issues, including Social Security and Medicare, ethics, long-term care, consumer issues, spirituality, pop culture, health care and economics. Ultimately, I would return in July, 2012 to resume writing, also picking up other weekly commentaries.

As an ‘age beat’ journalist for over 44 years, I have penned more than 930 stories covering aging, health care and medical issues. These authored and coauthored pieces have appeared in national, state and trade publications.

In 2023, my articles appeared weekly in 52 issues of the Pawtucket Times and Woonsocket Call (now combined in one newspaper called the Blackstone Valley Call & Times), and RINewsToday.com, a statewide digital news publication.

As we celebrate the New Year and look forward to 2024, looking back, here are my top five favorite articles published in 2023:

“In the coming years, generations of older Veterans will be leaving us,” – RINewsToday, Nov. 13, 2023  

This commentary published before Veterans Day, had the Department of Veteran Affairs estimate that there will be a couple of hundred World War II veterans, over 1,600 Korean and 14,000 Vietnam veterans still alive in Rhode Island. In the coming years, frailty and health issues will keep these elderly veterans’ from attending Veteran Day celebrations and even at their reunions.     
 
As a generation of Civil War and World War I veterans vanish in 1956 and 2011, this writer urged readers to cherish the surviving older veterans. In the next thirty years, it was stressed that new generations of veterans who fought in World War II, Korea and Vietnam will pass away and these veterans were urged to share their personal stories and oral histories for the sake of America’s future generations. “They have so much to say, and America’s younger generations have much to learn from them,” noted the commentary. 

This commentary was dedicated to the writer’s father, Second Lt. Frank M. Weiss, who died in December 2003, in Dallas, Texas at 89 years old.

“Passages – Life and Times of Morris Nathanson,” RINewsToday, Oct. 7, 2023

Over two decades, this writer would visit Morris Nathanson on Saturday afternoons sitting in his living room drinking cups of freshly brewed coffee.  We would talk about Pawtucket, world events, and he would reminiscence about his amazing life’s journey from his childhood in Pawtucket, to the international world he lived in later in his life.

My friend, 95-year-old Morris Nathanson, a painter, illustrator and restaurant/hospitality designer died last September. My commentary was written to recognize and honor Morris’s incredible life, detailing his World War II experiences, fighting for civil rights, and his impact on the art and design scene.

Growing up poor during the depression in Pawtucket’s Pleasant View neighborhood, Morris, a spitting image of Mark Twine, or maybe Albert Einstein to me, would ultimately have a major impact on Rhode Island’s art and restaurant design scene. 

Morris brought the strategy of adaptive re-use of underutilized and vacant mills to city and state officials, a concept that he picked up from his years of working in New York City, watching the development and transformation of the industrial mills in SOHO.

Witnessing firsthand man’s biases and prejudices motivated him throughout seventy-five years of his long life to fight for the equal rights of all.  Morris participated in the Freedom Rides of 1961, Dr. Martin Luther King’s campaigns in Selma and Birmingham, Alabama, and the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.  

At age 24, Morris, head of the design team at Paramount, developed and designed the first franchise in American history, Dunkin Donuts. While working with Friedman he also designed restaurants in the pavilions of the 1964 World’s Fair in Flushing Meadows, New York.

When Morris left Paramount Restaurant Supply Co, his most notable design projects locally include Hemenway’s, Ruth Chris Steak House, 22 Bowen, restaurants and bars for the Inn at Castle Hill, Capital Grill, Pizzeria Uno, Joe’s American Bar & Grill, Mills Tavern, Waterman Grill, Red Stripe and for those who still remember, the beloved Ming Garden and McGarry’s Restaurant in downtown Providence.  He also had clients all over the world.

It would take pages to detail all of Morris’s professional accomplishments while serving on state, city and nonprofit organizations throughout his long-life.  Hopefully I whetted your appetite to learn more about his life by reading this commentary. 

“Will Magaziner fulfill call to reestablish House Aging Committee,” RINewsToday, Oct. 9, 2023.

As reported, with Congressman David Cicilline retiring from Congress, no House lawmaker has yet stepped up to reintroduce, H.R. 583, the Rhode Island lawmaker’s resolution to reestablish the House Select Committee on Aging (HSCoA). Without receiving a vote in the House Rules Committee at the end of the 117th Congress, the resolution was considered “dead.” On his way out Cicilline was not successful in passing the legislative baton and finding a new original sponsor.  The Rhode Island Congressman had introduced this resolution in four Congressional sessions.

The HSCoA was a permanent select committee of the U.S. House of representatives between 1974 to 1992.  The committee was initially created with the intent of not crafting legislative proposals, but of conducting investigations and holding hearings to put the Congressional spotlight on aging issues. Its purpose was to push for legislation and other actions, working with standing committees, through regular committee channels.

This writer asks who will ultimately pick up the legislative baton from Cicilline to become Rhode Island’s fiery aging advocate?  Will it be Congressman Seth Magaziner, or the newly elected Congressman Gabe Amo, from Rhode Island’s Congressional District 1 to step to the plate?

The article asks why shouldn’t a Rhode Island Congressman follow in the footsteps of former Rhode Island Congressman John E. Fogarty (dec.) and be the original sponsor of legislation that will have a major impact on national aging policy. The lawmaker would become a hero to America’s seniors.  

“Unique partnership creates Senior Fellows pilot program,” RINewsToday, Dec. 11, 2023

This commentary announced that the success of a pilot Senior Fellows Program, created by Leadership Rhode Island (LRI) and Age-Friendly Rhode Island (AFRI), the organizations are seeking funding to offer another session in the summer of 2024.

The unique initiative prepared 25 Senior Fellows to advocate for improvements that address age-related challenges in Rhode Island. The initial eight-week program was tuition-free. The first crop of Senior Fellows, residents of 13 different cities and towns in Rhode Island, ranged in age from 62 to 83. Nearly half were retired.

The idea to develop a senior advocates program came from Marianne Raimondo, a graduate of LRI’s Core Program, who made the connection between Leadership Rhode Island and James Burke Connell. Connell is the executive director of Age-Friendly Rhode Island, an initiative at Rhode Island College that represents a coalition of public and private agencies, organizations and individuals committed to healthy aging.

Connell proposed the pilot program because, he says, empowering seniors to become advocates, activists and champions of age-friendly thinking and practices “will result in a Rhode Island where older adults thrive and live their best lives.”  He was inspired by similar programs in Maine and New Hampshire.

Age-Friendly RI raised the funds for the pilot program, and relied on LRI’s “talented team” to handle recruiting, participant selection, curriculum planning, and guiding participants in the development of individual community commitments, Connell says.

Most session days were divided into two parts, with half focused on knowledge-building around relevant issues, such as housing, food insecurity, transportation needs, and health care. The other half focused on skill-building, such as writing persuasively, public speaking and network building, to enable the Fellows to develop and eventually execute their own Civic Commitments.

The Fellows took turns describing their Civic Commitments during their final session, held at the RI State House.  The presentations, which included several “poignant and pin-drop moments,” were well received.

“Increased funding must be tied to nursing home mandated minimum staffing“, RINewsToday, September 25, 2023

The commentary announced that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) had issued a proposed rule to establish comprehensive staffing requirements for nursing homes—including, for the first time, national minimum nurse staffing standards. CMS officials said that the requirement would improve both safety and promote high-quality care in the nation’s 18,700 skilled nursing facilities delivering care to 1.2 million residents each day.

National and Rhode Island nursing home trade groups pushed back on the unfunded mandate requiring more staffing especially during a severe labor shortage forcing hundreds of facilities across the nation to close because of lack of workers.

​John E. Gage, President, and CEO of the Rhode Island Health Care Association, reported that six Rhode Island-based facilities have closed since the beginning of the pandemic in March 2020. Three others are currently in receivership. He warns that arbitrary federal staffing mandates will result in more closures, and residents will be displaced from their homes just as they were most recently when Charlesgate Nursing Center in Providence.

James Nyberg, president, and CEO of LeadingAge Rhode Island, with offices in East Providence, sees a staffing ratio mandate as a blunt enforcement tool that does not consider the numerous challenges facing providers, including Medicaid underfunding, lack of workforce, and the diversity of resident needs. Moreover, he charged that fining for being unable to meet a staffing ratio is counterproductive by siphoning off scarce resources that facilities need as they seek to address their workforce and resident care needs.

To review ALL of Herb’s articles published by RINewstoday, go to https://rinewstoday.com/herb-weiss/

Defining Brendan Doherty: Romney Republican or Moderate

 Published September 28, 2012, Pawtucket Times

            With the upcoming November election just six weeks away, Republican Candidate Brendan Doherty held a news conference last Tuesday at Memorial, attempting to distance himself from House GOP leadership and from Mitt Romney, the Republican Party’s anointed Presidential candidate.

Surrounded by a backdrop of the 294 bed CommunityHospital in Pawtucket’s East Riverview Neighborhood, Doherty, the GOP challenger to Democratic Rep. David Cicilline, came before seniors and supporters to do political damage control, with an agenda to set the public record straight about his positions on Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.

Keeping Social Security, Medicare off the Chopping Block

Charging that Cicilline was misleading to voters on his positions on the nation’s most popular domestic programs, the Republican Candidate pledged his opposition to “privatization” of the nation’s Social Security Program, calling for Congress to keep the Social Security and Medicare programs off the budgetary chopping block.  The former state police superintendent, looking to become Rhode Island’s newest Congressman for the First Congressional District, also supported increased benefits for seniors already enrolled in the Social Security Program.

At the morning news conference, Doherty warned that he has no “secret plan” to cut Social Security and Medicare, as Cicilline charges.  He chastised the Freshman Congressman and his Democratic political operatives for using scare tactics and misleading political rhetoric to fuel a misinformation campaign to link him to Republican Presidential Candidate, Mitt Romney and his running mate, Rep. Paul Ryan’s support for a Medicare voucher program.  Doherty stated that a voucher system would shift healthier Americans to private insurance plans and leave the sickest and frailest American’s in a weakened version of traditional Medicare.

Putting the Spot Light on Fraud and Waste

Doherty, calling himself an “independent thinker” a “centrist” who pledged to reach across the aisle to House Democrats, to pass legislation that would root out fraud and abuse in Medicare and Medicaid.  He noted that a new RAND Corporation study showed that fraud and waste in these two programs may be as high as $98 billion.

“While Congressman Cicilline often speaks of his commitment to protect Medicare from any possibility of budget cuts, he failed to take this common sense action to address the fraud, waste and abuse that accounts for at least $48 billion being diverted every year from the Medicare program and taken away from our seniors who depend on the Medicare program,” commented Doherty.

Doherty, however, looks to push for the Medicare and Medicaid Fighting Fraud and Abuse to Save Taxpayers’ Dollars Act or the Medicare Fast Act (H.R. 3399), as types of legislative proposals he could support if he were elected to Congress.

Cicilline did not mince his words after Doherty’s news conference by continuing to tie his Republican challenger to the Radical Republicans who control the House.  He charged that “My Republican opponent supports raising the retirement age for Social Security and if he got to Congress, would vote to keep the Republicans in control of the House where they would continue to push an extreme agenda that would end the guarantee of Medicare and turn it into a voucher system.”

According to the Democratic Congressman, the Preserving Our Promise to Seniors Act, whish he is a cosponsor, is the best way to extend the life of Social Security Program along with improving the Cost of Living Adjustment formula to give beneficiaries an adjustment based on the cost of goods and services that they regularly purchased.  The Democratic Congressman also opposed the raising the Social Security eligibility age or any effort to privatize the system, these changes supported by many GOP lawmakers.

Responding to the news conference, the Rhode Island Democratic Party issued a release calling Doherty’s pledge to preserve Social Security and Medicare “an empty one,” given the Republican House Leaderships efforts to slash funding for these programs for years.

Countering Doherty’s attempt to label himself a moderate, Bill Fischer, spokesperson for the RI Democratic Party called Cicilline’s Republican opponent a “Romney Republican who has clearly stated he would repeal the Affordable Care Act; raise the eligibility age on Social Security; and will vote for Republican control in Congress.”

“If Doherty were serious about protecting seniors, he wouldn’t be calling for the repeal of our historic healthcare reform,” Fischer said. “Maybe he doesn’t understand the enormous benefits Rhode Island seniors have already received since its passage. Thanks to President Obama’s Affordable Care Act, 128,390 people on Medicare in Rhode Island have access to preventative health care services, such as colonoscopies and mammograms.

In Rhode Island’s First Congressional District alone, 7,300 seniors have saved over $4 million on prescription drugs because the Affordable Care Act closed the donut hole.”

TV Spot Ties Doherty to Radical Republicans

             With Doherty’s effort to distance himself from the Washington Republican agenda, Cicilline’s campaign released a new television spot, entitled “Fantastic,” to more firmly politically tie his Republican challenger to the Romney-Ryan agenda in Washington.

“At the end of the day, Brendan Doherty wants Republicans in control of Congress and Mitt Romney setting the agenda in the White House. In fact, he thinks Romney would “be fantastic for Rhode Island,’” said Cicilline campaign manager Eric Hyers, detailing the spot..

“Rhode Islanders will have a clear choice this November between re-electing President Obama and Congressman Cicilline so we can get our state back on the right track, or voting for Mitt Romney, Brendan Doherty, and the Washington Republicans who got us into this mess to begin with.”

In the 30 second spot, Doherty emphasizes his support for Romney at a March 3, 2012 candidate forum, saying, “I think he’d be fantastic for Rhode Island.”

In January 2012, Doherty formally endorsed Romney for President, describing him as a “proven leader.”  In the same month, Doherty traveled to New Hampshire to campaign for Romney and was later introduced to the Republican presidential nominee by former Rhode Island Governor Don Carcieri.

The political spot also outlines areas where Romney and Doherty agree on policy – including their support for repealing President Obama’s historic health care reform law, as well as their mutual opposition to reproductive freedoms for women and the Buffett Rule that would require millionaires to pay at least the same tax rate as the middle class.

As the Dust Settles…

Here are questions that voters in Congressional District 1 must ask themselves before they enter the polls in the November election:

Can Doherty successfully repackage himself as a moderate Republican?  If so, with a Republican-controlled House, captured by a radical Tea Party who philosophically opposes political compromise, as a moderate Republican will he vote for  Democratic initiatives that the majority of his Democratic constituents support.  Or can he stand the “heat in the kitchen” and vote against his House Republican leadership.

Can the voters forgive the former Providence Mayor, now their Congressman, for his statements made about the fiscal health of his City as he left office?  If so, they must determine if it is more important to keep this seat Democratic, in hopes of bringing the political party back to power in that Chamber.

With the November election looming, the Cicilline-Doherty political battle, truly becomes the classic “He said, She said,” debate, with the voters ultimately finding out the truth in the New Congress.

Herb Weiss is a Pawtucket-based freelance writer who covers aging, health care and medical issues.