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Our 2026 Legislative Priorities
- Increased Ombudsman Funding: Ombudsmen are essential for nursing home, assisted living, and home care residents – helping to resolve care concerns and improve quality of life – but Ombudsman funding hasn’t increased for many years.
- Full Nursing Home Medicaid COLA Increase: Rhode Island must provide a full Medicaid cost-of-living increase for nursing homes. By law, 80% directed to frontline caregiver wages as required by law but last year’s increase covered only about half of what funding is needed.
- Nursing Home Financial Transparency: For too long, the public has been kept in the dark for how for-profit nursing home owners are using Medicaid and Medicaid dollars. That’s why Rhode Island must pass the Department of Health’s financial transparency bill.
We are now Raise the Bar on Long-Term Care
In 2021, Raise the Bar helped successfully pass the Nursing Home Staffing and Quality Care Act, setting some of the strongest standards in the country. After countless delays, we are thrilled to announce that as of January 1, the staffing law is finally being enforced.
We also know our long-term care system is changing and faces new and complex challenges. Residents are entering nursing homes with higher needs, caregivers face chronic understaffing and low wages, and uncertain Medicaid funding is straining an already fragile system. At the same time, older adults and people with disabilities are choosing care at home and in the community.
Meeting this moment means expanding our focus – and our name to Raise the Bar on Long-Term Care.
The Raise the Bar Coalition includes the following partners:
- Advocates for Better Care in Rhode Island,
- Senior Agenda Coalition of RI,
- District 1199 SEIU New England,
- RI Organizing Project,
- Economic Progress Institute,
- Sista Fire,
- RI Interfaith Coalition to Reduce Poverty,
- Women’s Fund of Rhode Island,
- Newport Partnership for Families,
- Fuerza Laboral,
- Protect our Healthcare Coalition,
- R.A.M.P (Real Access Motivates Progress),
- RI AFL-CIO, RI Working Families,
- Rhode Island Alliance for Retired Americans.