Senate President Ruggerio back in the hospital days before scheduled return to State House
Rhode Island Senate President Dominick Ruggerio is shown on Tuesday, Jan. 14, 2025, during Gov. Dan McKee's State of the State address in the House chamber. (Photo by Michael Salerno/Rhode Island Current)
Senate President Dominick Ruggerio is back in the hospital days before he was scheduled to return to the State House for the home stretch of the legislative session.
The news was first reported by The Providence Journal, and confirmed to Rhode Island Current Friday afternoon by Greg Paré, a spokesperson for Ruggerio.
Paré was unable to confirm what date Ruggerio was readmitted to Our Lady of Fatima Hospital, but said it was due to a reaction to a treatment he was undergoing for his cancer diagnosis.
'They're working to help him regain his health,' Paré said.
Senate President Ruggerio takes more time off to focus on 'rebuilding his strength'
The news comes five weeks after Ruggerio, 76, was last released from the same hospital's rehabilitation center after a bout with pneumonia. The North Providence Democrat has been absent for a majority of the 2025 sessions, attending just four of the 17 regularly scheduled Senate gatherings since January. He last presided over the chamber's regular session on March 25. Ruggerio declined recent interview requests about his health, though Pare said he was doing better, with plans to focus on 'rebuilding his strength' ahead of the final stretch of the session.
An email sent from Ruggerio's Senate email address to lawmakers at 1:39 p.m. Friday, and obtained by Rhode Island Current, stressed the need for the chamber to address the primary care doctor shortage, noting recent actions by insurance companies and Gov. Dan McKee. The email is signed 'Donny, Val and David,' referring to Ruggerio, Sen. Majority Leader Val Lawson and Senate Majority Whip David Tikoian.
Less than 90 minutes later, Paré sent another email to senators letting them know Ruggerio was back in the hospital ahead of the news being publicly reported.
Ruggerio originally planned to return to the chamber following its April recess this week. Paré was unsure when asked Friday whether that was still the plan, given his hospitalization.
Additional information regarding his condition from Fatima hospital was not immediately available.
The full Senate will meet again at 4 p.m. on April 22.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
14 hours ago
- Yahoo
GOP's health care plan: We're all going to die, so whatever
If death and taxes are the only certainties, Joni Ernst is here to cut one and fast-track the other. 'We all are going to die," she said. You might think that's a line from a nihilistic French play. Or something a teenage goth said in Hot Topic. Or an epiphany from your stoner college roommate after he watched Interstellar at 3 a.m. But that was actually the Iowa Senator's God-honest response to concerns that slashing Medicaid to achieve President Trump's 'Big Beautiful Bill' would lead to more preventable deaths. The full exchange at a May 30 town hall included one audience member shouting at the stage, 'People will die!' And Ernst responding, 'People are not — well, we all are going to die, so for heaven's sake.' That's not a health care policy — that's a horoscope for the terminally screwed. As you can imagine, the internet didn't love it, because losing your health should not trigger the equivalent of a shrug emoji from someone elected to serve the public good. But rather than walking it back, Ernst leaned in, filming a mock apology in a graveyard because nothing says, 'I care about your future,' like filming next to people who don't have one. Opinion: Nurses are drowning while Braun ignores Indiana's health care crisis Ernst's comments aren't just philosophical musings. She's justifying policy choices that cause real harm. If passed, this bill would, according to the Congressional Budget Office, remove health coverage for up to 7.6 million Americans. That's not just 'we all die someday' territory. That's 'some people will die soon and needlessly.' What makes this even more galling is that the people pushing these cuts have access to high-quality, taxpayer-subsidized healthcare. Congress gets the AAA, platinum, concierge-level government plan. Meanwhile, millions of Americans are told to try their luck with essential oils or YouTube acupuncture tutorials. Honestly, it felt more like performance art than policy: 'Sorry about your grandma getting kicked out of her assisted living facility. Please enjoy this scenic view of her future! LOL!' We're not asking you to defeat death, senator. Death is both inevitable and bipartisan. But there is a broad chasm between dying peacefully at 85 and dying in your 40's because your Medicaid plan disappeared and your GoFundMe didn't meet its goal. Fundamentally, governing is about priorities. A budget is a moral document. When a lawmaker tells you 'we're all going to die' in response to a policy choice, they're telling you 'I've made peace with your suffering as collateral damage.' And if a U.S. Senator can stand in a cemetery and joke about it, you have to wonder — who do our federal legislators think those graves are for? Opinion: Indiana DCS cut foster care in half — and now claims children are safer This isn't just about one comment or one bill. It's about a mindset that treats healthcare as a luxury rather than a right. If death is inevitable, then access to healthcare you can afford is what helps determine how long you have, how comfortably you live, and whether you get to watch your kids grow up. Healthcare isn't about escaping death. It's about dignity and quality of life while we are here. Ernst got one thing right: death will come for us all. But leadership, real leadership, is about helping people live as long and as well as they can before that day comes. You want to make jokes, Senator? Fine. But if your punchline is 'You're all going to die anyway,' don't be surprised when your constituents realize the joke's on them. Kristin Brey is the "My Take" columnist for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Joni Ernst films graveyard video after telling sick people "we all die" | Opinion
Boston Globe
a day ago
- Boston Globe
Biden's doctor failed to properly assess fitness for office, Obama's doctor says
The rare criticism of one White House doctor by another comes as Republicans have increased scrutiny of O'Connor and other former White House aides. House Republicans subpoenaed O'Connor on Thursday, a day after President Donald Trump ordered White House attorneys to determine whether Biden's inner circle tried to conceal his alleged cognitive decline. Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up Kuhlman also said the 2024 report merely assessed Biden's health when it should have considered his fitness to serve in one of the most taxing jobs on the planet. Advertisement 'It shouldn't be just health, it should be fitness,' Kuhlman said. 'Fitness is: Do you have that robust mind, body, spirit that you can do this physically, mentally, emotionally demanding job?' O'Connor did not respond to repeated requests for comment. Biden's recent disclosure of metastatic prostate cancer and reporting about his alleged physical and cognitive decline have fueled suspicion - among Democrats as well as Republicans - that the true state of Biden's health toward the end of his term was known only by O'Connor and a few others closest to Biden. Advertisement Journalists Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson sketched a picture of a well-meaning but weakened president in a book they released last month. The book, which draws on interviews with dozens of Democratic insiders after the 2024 election, paints a portrait of a man suffering at times from forgetfulness, incoherence and fatigue. It also says that O'Connor was reluctant to give Biden a cognitive test, though he was assessed by a neurologist for conditions such as Parkinson's disease. Biden gave a sarcastic response last week. 'You can see that I'm mentally incompetent, and I can't walk, and I can beat the hell out of both of them,' he told reporters at a Memorial Day event, apparently referring to Tapper and Thompson. Biden's granddaughter Naomi Biden has called the book 'political fairy smut.' The book isn't the first time Biden's cognitive state has been questioned. Special counsel Robert K. Hur said in February 2024 that Biden had 'limited precision and recall' - including not remembering when his vice-presidential term ended - after Hur conducted two days of interviews with Biden about his handling of classified documents. Kuhlman formerly worked alongside O'Connor in the White House medical unit, a nonpartisan post, and appointed him in 2009 to serve as then-Vice President Biden's personal doctor. Kuhlman was Obama's physician from 2009 to 2013. O'Connor examined Biden - and signed his name to the February 2024 medical report that said the president 'continues to be fit for duty' - four months before a disastrous campaign debate between Trump and Biden prompted Democrats to call for Biden to step down as the nominee. Advertisement Kuhlman, who left the medical unit in 2013, said he tries not to criticize those who have held similar positions. He called O'Connor 'a good doctor' who seemed to do his best to 'give trusted medical advice.' 'I didn't see that he's purposely hiding stuff, but I don't know that,' he said. 'Maybe the investigation will show it.' Kuhlman wrote a 2024 book about his experiences in the White House Medical Unit in which he argued for cognitive testing for older candidates and presidents. O'Connor's six-page report included Biden's lab results and an explanation of various conditions for which he was being treated. It also listed 10 medical specialists, including a neurologist, who also examined Biden. 'President Biden is a healthy, active, robust 81-year-old male, who remains fit to successfully execute the duties of the presidency,' O'Connor wrote. White House doctors have long been under intense public scrutiny, balancing the deeply personal doctor-patient relationship with a responsibility to tell the American public whether the president is fit to serve - and if not, why. Some have gone to great lengths to hide when the president is severely ill - as Grover Cleveland's doctors did when they turned a yacht into an operating room to secretly remove a tumor from the president's mouth in 1893. Presidential physicians also are expected to communicate to Americans personal information about the very person who could fire them. 'Whether it's family who are worried for them or people who work for them and don't want to lose their jobs, no one has a vested interest in hearing the truth about the president's health - except for the American people and the world,' said Barbara Perry, a presidential historian at the University of Virginia. Advertisement It has not always been clear what role the White House doctors see for themselves. Even as they are often close confidants of the president, they must consider the good of the country in their recommendations about what tests and treatments to pursue. O'Connor repeatedly refused last year to administer a cognitive exam to Biden even as aides privately expressed concerns about his mental fitness, according to Tapper and Thompson's book. Trump's former doctors, including Ronny Jackson and Sean Conley, have at times sounded more like cheerleaders for the president than sober judges of his health. His current doctor, Sean Barbabella, mentioned Trump's 'frequent victories in golf events' in the first medical report of his second term. Jackson suggested to the media in 2018 that Trump had 'incredibly good genes' and joked that he might live to 200 years old if his eating habits were more healthful. Jackson, now a Republican congressman from Texas, was demoted by the U.S. Navy after an inspector general report shed light on multiple misdeeds involving alcohol and harassment while he served in the White House medical unit. Conley, who succeeded Jackson, repeatedly downplayed the severity of Trump's symptoms when he was hospitalized with covid-19 in the fall of 2020. Past presidents who didn't want the public to know the truth about their poor health have orchestrated elaborate cover-ups. After Woodrow Wilson suffered a major stroke in 1919, leaving him with a paralyzed left side, his doctor conspired with Wilson's wife to keep his condition hidden from his own Cabinet. Advertisement Cleveland insisted the operation to remove his tumor be secretly performed on a friend's yacht, under the guise that he was on a fishing trip near his summer home on Long Island. The administration denied an initial report about the surgery, and the truth wasn't widely accepted until after Cleveland's death many years later, when one of his doctors publicly confessed. On the other hand, Dwight D. Eisenhower reportedly ordered his press secretary to 'tell them everything' after suffering a heart attack in 1955. His surgeons regularly briefed the public after his heart surgery. But medical transparency is only as strong as the president wants it to be. Like regular Americans, the president is protected by medical privacy laws, so disclosing any health information is ultimately up to him. An additional challenge, former White House doctors and presidential historians say, is that there is no official requirement for how often a president should undergo an exam, what the exam should include and which of the results should be made public. 'There's nothing codified about what to do,' said Kuhlman, who also served on the White House medical unit under George W. Bush. White House doctors traditionally conduct an annual physical exam on the president and release a memo of varying length that includes vital signs, a summary of the physical examination and the results of blood tests. These memos generally conclude with some kind of pronouncement from the doctor that the president is fit to execute the duties of the presidency. Trump's and Biden's doctors have largely followed that pattern, although the reports on Biden's health have been significantly longer and more detailed than the reports on Trump. Advertisement Kuhlman and Lawrence Mohr, who served as physician to Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, said they were never asked by any president to withhold medical information in their reports. Mohr said he recalls that there was 'never any question' about being candid about the president's health. 'You never lie; never, never say anything that's not true,' Mohr said. 'You put out a clear press release about what's going on, what to expect and you get it out there. If you don't do that, you end up with all sorts of speculation.' Reagan was 77 when he left office and five years later announced he had Alzheimer's disease. He faced similar questions about his fitness to serve. Mohr recollected administering the Mini-Mental State Examination - a test used to assess cognitive function - to the 40th president. Trump's doctors have given him a different cognitive test, the Montreal Cognitive Assessment. But cognitive tests are not standard practice. Neither George W. Bush nor Obama took one, Kuhlman said. But they were much younger while in office than Biden. 'I was fortunate to have 50-year-old patients instead of 80-year-old ones,' Kuhlman said.
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Yahoo
In Lansing, Democrats warn Medicaid and SNAP cuts would be a 'perfect storm' for the poor
U.S. Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-Holly) and U.S. Rep. Kristen McDonald Rivet (D-Bay City) at a June 6, 2025 town hall in Lansing. | Kyle Davidson Members of the Michigan Democratic Party laid out the impacts of congressional Republicans' 'big beautiful bill' at a town hall on Friday, calling on residents of Michigan's 7th Congressional District to help educate their friends and family as well. A few hundred supporters packed into the gym of Everett High School in Lansing as U.S. Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-Holly), U.S. Rep. Kristen McDonald Rivet (D-Bay City) and Michigan Democratic Party Chair Curtis Hertel detailed how the Trump administration's policies would impact everyone, particularly individuals with limited income. The Michigan Democratic Party has hosted several similar events in Republican districts throughout the state, Hertel said, noting House Republicans had been instructed to avoid town halls with their constituents. 'The most basic thing for a public servant is to be able to sit and answer questions. … The least someone can do is sit down with people and explain their votes' Hertel said. And the 7th Congressional District's current representative, Tom Barrett (R-Charlotte) has a lot of explaining to do, Hertel said, slamming Barrett for supporting Republican's spending plan, and arguing the representative failed to stand up to the President and make himself available to his constituents A Barrett spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment. Prior to taking questions, McDonald Rivet slammed the Republican spending effort, telling audience members that it would take away healthcare and raise the cost of medicine, education and energy in order to deliver a tax break to the wealthy. 'Oh, and by the way, it's going to increase the deficit by several trillion dollars,' She said. Slotkin looked back on the president's first term, when Trump was looking to overturn the Affordable Care Act, which expanded access to Medicaid and barred insurance providers from denying people coverage or charging them due to preexisting health conditions. 'It was the first thing he talked about when he got sworn in, he even had the House of Representatives vote to repeal Obamacare. And now we not only still have it, we expanded it, and how? Because we educated people,' Slotkin said. However, rather than cutting people's healthcare outright, Slotkin argued Trump is aiming to hide those cuts by requiring individuals to reregister for Medicaid every six months, making it harder to qualify and more difficult to sign up. While the current proposal would implement work requirements for Medicaid recipients, Slotkin noted it also raises the age limit for those requirements to 64. According to KFF, an independent health policy organization, 92% of medicaid recipients under 65 are already working full or part time. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated that Republican's budget plan would result in 10.9 million additional people being uninsured in 2034, with 7.8 million fewer individuals on Medicaid due to the policy's proposed work requirements. Even individuals who are not on Medicaid will feel the impacts of cuts to the program, Slotkin said, noting that nursing homes, hospitals and mental health facilities all rely on Medicaid funding. 'I would just say this bill is designed to really be a perfect storm for poor people. If you are living at or below the poverty line, you're getting hit in every direction. Medicaid, your health care; SNAP your food; a bunch of programs, right, that you depend on. … They are paying for those tax benefits for the most wealthy by really the perfect storm of cuts for the poorest among us,' Slotkin said. On top of cutting SNAP benefits by $300 billion, the Department of Government Efficiency had canceled $1 billion in funding to programs supporting school meals and food banks, McDonald Rivet said. 'So you're that hungry kid and you have lost access to a food bank. You have lost access to food at school, and now you don't have SNAP benefits. This is the America that this bill creates,' McDonald Rivet said. Alongside questions on cuts to SNAP and Medicaid, audience members asked the lawmakers about the legal challenges levied against the Trump administration, and Democrats' plans to counter Republicans heading into the 2026 mid-term election. On Friday, the Trump Administration backed down in its resistance of a Supreme Court order demanding that the administration facilitate the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was wrongly deported to El Salvador three months ago. However, the fight goes beyond Abrego Gracia, into whether the executive branch needs to obey orders from the Supreme Court, Slotkin said. 'Now, we haven't had to deal with this issue in the years past because Democrats and Republicans have largely said, 'Huh, if the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court issues a court order, we're going to follow it.' Trump is pushing the boundaries on all the democratic values and principles most of us grew up with,' Slotkin said. Should an individual defy a federal court order, U.S. marshals would eventually be sent to enforce that order, Slotkin said. However, the U.S. marshals are controlled by the United States attorney general. Should the U.S. marshals receive a request to enforce a Supreme Court order against the president, Slotkin raised the question on whether Attorney General Pam Bondi, a Trump loyalist, would approve it. 'We've needed to have this fight. We need to have it out. We need a court order that he needs to obey, and we need to precipitate this conversation on the U.S. marshals. But today was an important sign that they don't want to get to that point. They don't want to wait until the U.S. marshals are potentially getting an order to activate,' Slotkin said. In preparing to take on the Trump Administration, Slotkin said she'd gone back to her roots in national security and crafted a war plan in the form of a 17-page powerpoint, with plans to lay out her vision of the nation's future under Democratic leadership. 'It's about facing our problems head on and saying the only way we do well as a country, the only way that we have a strong middle class going forward, the American Dream going forward, is if we face these issues and have a vision. And it's economic, it's about national security, and it's about our democracy,' Slotkin said. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
