STORY OF THE WEEK: Is there a (somewhat) simple solution to the cost and competitiveness problems afflicting healthcare in Rhode Island? Dr. Michael Fine, the author and community organizer who served as state health director during Lincoln Chafee’s administration, believes so. While the idea of using technology to cut rising healthcare costs — now about $4.5 trillion a year in the U.S. — hasn’t panned out, boosting the emphasis on primary care could yield big dividends, Fine said. The former health director, who is part of the leadership of a nonprofit pushing primary care for all Americans, isn’t alone in making this argument. Just consider Costa Rica for an example of how emphasizing lifelong health, rather than the more American mode of focusing on disease, can lead to longer lifespans.

Adds Fine, during an interview on Political Roundtable, “When you look at other countries, countries that provide the same quality or way better quality than we do, and do it at 60 percent less [expense] than we do. The way they do it is they make sure every single person has a robust primary care relationship, and that’s what we need to duplicate.” The way to move forward, Fine said, is by producing more doctors, nurses and other clinicians in Rhode Island and giving them more of an incentive to stay here. Fine is among those on a panel created by state Senate President Dominick Ruggerio to study the idea of establishing a state medical school at URI. While it remains to be seen what happens with that concept, Fine said it could produce the 50 to 100 doctors a year needed to make up for retirements by current physicians and to plug a gap for Rhode Islanders without primary care.

CROSS-PURPOSES: Conspicuously absent from the Health Care System Planning Cabinet assembled by Gov. Dan McKee in February is Attorney General Peter Neronha. This was unsurprising, given the fractious relationship between the two men. Neronha has nonetheless been the loudest voice in the state for years citing a need for strategic long-term planning on healthcare. He took up the broader message in a recent statement opposing a rate increase for insurer Blue Cross Blue Shield RI: “Our State’s health care system is broken, overburdened by the loss of primary care physicians and other primary care providers, and an aging workforce.” McKee’s panel includes an array of state officials, ranging from EOHHS Secretary Richard Charest and Postsecondary Education Commissioner Shannon Gilkey, to the state directors of Medicaid, Health, DHS, BHDDH, and DLT. A report is due in early December.

VEEP: Amid early reports of an expected Newport fundraiser next Friday for Democratic VP candidate Gov. Tim Walz, RI Democratic Party Chairwoman Liz Beretta Perik tells me the time and location have not been finalized, and with the DNC happening in Chicago the following week, the event may happen later than originally expected.

GUN POLITICS: Gov. McKee put down a marker this week, perhaps trying to bolster liberal support, by saying he will include an ‘assault weapon’ ban in his next budget proposal. But the budget requires a two-thirds vote, or 50 votes, in the House of Representatives. Given opposition from Republicans and pro-gun Democrats, that vote looks like a stretch. 

HOLIDAY: Rhode Island remains the only state to celebrate Victory Day. While veterans have opposed doing away with the holiday, others call for a different approach. In an interview with my colleague Luis Hernandez, Ken Nomiyama of Newport — who was born in an internment camp in California — said in part: “I’m not trying to diminish the sacrifices that were made by the Rhode Island families and just do away with the holiday for the sake of creating this vacuum and that feeling of celebration, of memory, of honor of those who did suffer during the war. There must be some way to find a middle ground on this, where we could respect both the Rhode Islanders who suffered and to respect the Japanese who are being targeted with this holiday.” 

THE CHURCH: Roman Catholic Bishop of Rhode Island Richard G. Henning was among those stunned when Pope Francis named him this week as the new bishop of Boston. As the National Catholic Register reported, Henning, 59, said he was “deeply shocked and surprised” to get the call. Henning has flown below the public radar in contrast to his controversial predecessor in Rhode Island, Thomas Tobin, and that — combined with his stated emphasis on being a good listener — may have helped in his selection. The Register’s story has 11 things to know about Henning, including his message to Catholics who have left the Church over clergy abuse: “If there are Catholics who are scandalized, I understand why they’re scandalized. It’s scandalous and certainly painful for me over the course of my life. But it has not made me lose my faith in God or my faith in the possibility of reconciliation and new life, even in the midst of what may feel devastating. So I would say to them that if I have failed you, if a leader in their Church has failed you, I’m so sorry, but God has not failed you. God is still with you …” 

THE RHODE ISLAND ANGLE: The Ocean State ranks high among states with a large percentage of Catholic residents, helping to explain the element of social conservatism long present in the Democrat-dominated General Assembly (Providence College, a Catholic institution, has shaped the thinking of many lawmakers). And while Elmwood natives Tom Donilon and Mike Donilon get a lot more attention for their connections with Barack Obama and Joe Biden, sibling Terry Donilon (who handled comms for Bob Weygand’s U.S. Senate run against Lincoln Chafee in 2000) is the director of communications for the Archdiocese of Boston. 

MUGSHOTS: My estimable colleague Ben Berke, who covers southeastern Massachusetts for The Public’s Radio, unearthed a bunch of mugshots from Fall River in the early 1900s. Ben digs up great stories, so I’m curious to see where he goes with this. The mugshots jogged my memory, making me think of the snaps of Mick Jagger and Keith Richards when they got arrested in Warwick in 1972 while headed to a performance at the Boston Garden.

The ProJo’s Tom Mooney recounted what happened when the band met ProJo photographer Andrew Dickerman (Mooney told the story after Dickerman died in 2016): “He’d been shooting pictures for the newspaper for three years already, but the legend of Journal photographer Andrew Dickerman always started, much to his chagrin, on that summer night in 1972. It was the night Warwick police arrested two members of the Rolling Stones at T.F. Green Airport while thousands of raucous fans at the Boston Garden impatiently awaited the arrival of the world’s hottest rock band. Dickerman — who retired in 2014 and died Sunday at age 73 in Thailand while on another of his world adventures — was in what would become a familiar spot: the center of things.

OK, maybe he hadn’t been invited there. Maybe he had to slip through a fence surrounding that old airport hangar to catch a glimpse of the famous band taking refuge from the public eye. But the hangar door was open and, he insisted as tempers flared, as a member of the working press he had a constitutional right to take pictures on public property. The band’s plane had detoured to Green that night because of fog. And, as the story goes, their bodyguards didn’t much care about the First Amendment. They began roughing Dickerman up as he kept pointing his camera at Keith Richards and Mick Jagger and kept taking pictures. Eventually Richards swung a belt at Dickerman. The cops stepped in. Soon Richards and Jagger were both behind bars, while Boston Mayor Kevin White pleaded for their release to avoid a riot at the Garden. (State police eventually escorted the band to the state line, and Massachusetts troopers sped them to the Garden.) As a photographer for The Journal for 45 years, Dickerman, whose usual soft speech belied a fiery passion, had a treasure trove of stories he could recall and laugh about. But the Rolling Stones story actually wasn’t one of them, his friends say. ‘Andy was one of those people who as a journalist didn’t feel right being part of the news,’ said Anne Peters, a friend and former photo editor. ‘He wanted to tell stories, right wrongs, make people’s lives better. He didn’t back down, but he never wanted to be the news.’” 

THE MOB AND BUDDY: While thinking of the past, Steph Machado’s story about the new TV pilot from Michael Corrente got me thinking about John Partington and Buddy Cianci. Partington, who helped create the witness protection program, served as public safety commissioner in Providence during the latter part of Buddy II. It was a time when the PPD was marked by dysfunction. Working with Buddy and Barney Prignano, Partington saw the need for change, but he had limited influence, given the mayor’s maximalist style of leadership. As we know, the world came crashing down for Buddy, spelling the beginning of the end, in April 1999. Here we are, a quarter-century later, and a motion picture has yet to be made from Mike Stanton’s excellent Cianci bio, The Prince of Providence. To bring the story full circle, Corrente had the rights to make such a movie, but they have since lapsed. Russell Crowe expressed interest in portraying Buddy after reading Stanton’s book, but Corrente tells me he couldn’t get the financing to move forward. “The question was, would the story be universal or would it be attractive just to a local audience? That was the fly in the ointment,” Corrente said. While the filmmaker said he remains open to pursuing the Buddy project (with an estimated need for about $25 million in financing), the outlook remains uncertain at best, due to the volume of good screenplays and the difficulty of moving ahead.

MEDIA NOTES: Former Providence AP reporter David Klepper, hale fellow, well met, has a new assignment, covering the intelligence community as part of AP’s national security team based in DC …. Congrats to Christopher Gavin, the newest reporter for Globe RI. Since Chris is known as a big Springsteen fan, we asked him to name his three favorite songs. His response: “1. ‘Thunder Road’ -- Basically the entire essence of Springsteen's catalog in one song, IMO. The way it builds on itself, to me, will always sound like an engine roaring to life (Greil Marcus' summation of the entire album often echos in my mind: "A '57 Chevy running on melted down Crystals records.") Harmonica intro sounds like summer. Incredible. The rest, in no particular order: ‘Darkness on The Edge of Town’ (especially any live version from '78); ‘The Promised Land’; ‘No Surrender’ (bonus points for acoustic rendition); ‘Open All Night’; ‘Youngstown’ (especially the Live in NYC rendition). (Sorry that's six! Backstreets makes seven.)” …. Congrats, too, to former ProJo Executive Editor Karen Bordeleau who has been named executive editor of nonprofit The New Bedford Light, effective Oct. 1.

GINA WORLD: Former RI Gov. Gina Raimondo was vetted, although not interviewed, for the VP job on the Democratic ticket and she remains a top Democratic prospect for the future. Speculation centers on Raimondo emerging as Treasury secretary if Kamala Harris wins in November. Raimondo has won fans across the aisle since becoming U.S. Commerce secretary in 2021, and she’s well-liked in the business community. But some progressives have remained sharply critical of Raimondo, and Branko Marcetic’s article in The Nation is a case in point. Excerpt: “After finishing law school, she founded Rhode Island’s first venture capital firm, Point Judith Capital. One of the enduring controversies of her career was the mysterious agreement, whose details were never made public, between the small and little known PJC and the Rhode Island state pension fund it was sold to in 2006. It saw the pension fund pay more than $1 million in fees and expenses to Raimondo’s former firm—which she continued to hold a lucrative interest in even after being elected state treasurer and governor—for the paltry return of only 5.11 percent. Stranger still, both Rhode Island and its capital, Providence, continued to stay invested in the underperforming firm years after the 10-year investment was meant to have expired, with the state finally managing to wriggle out of the commitment days before she was nominated to Biden’s cabinet in 2021.”

PENSION POLITICS: On a related note, Advocates for COLA Restoration and Pension Reform have created a website. It reads in part, “Our efforts include returning Pension regulations and practices to their pre 2011 status, removing age requirements for retirement, future COLA percentages based upon the Consumer Price Index (CPI) and applied to full pension increments, with the elimination of caps in determining payment.” 

CRIMINAL JUSTICE: My colleague Lynn Arditi reports on how a homeless Liberian immigrant who spent 31 days locked up at the ACI for a crime he didn’t commit has filed a claim against the City of Woonsocket.

CULTURE WARS: Sociologist James Davison Hunter came up with the term “culture wars” more than 30 years ago to describe some of the symbolic fights consuming American politics and campaigns. Hunter joined On Point — broadcast weekdays on The Public’s Radio — to discuss how to improve the situation.

THE VOTE: Ken Block, the businessman and two-time candidate for governor, published earlier this year “Disproven: My Unbiased Search for Voter Fraud for the Trump Campaign, the Data That Shows Why He Lost, and How We Can Improve Our Elections.” When Block and I talked in March, he said he was encountering hurdles in getting his message out through conservative media. That could help explain why he recently took part in a broadcast debate with Mike Lindell of My Pillow fame, one of the Trump allies who has done the most to amplify the former president’s fictitious narrative about a stolen election. You can watch their debate here. As I reported last year in a story on election denialism, Rhode Islanders, including a state rep, traveled to a Lindell summit in Missouri in 2021.

KICKER: Panda watch!