Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha is closing 2023 much as he began the year – with a higher profile thanks to his frequent missives on X, formerly known as Twitter. Neronha shifted into a higher gear on the social messaging platform early in the year, with comments on topics ranging from gun violence and the state’s healthcare landscape to the fortunes of local sports teams. The state’s top prosecutor says his tweets are a way of communicating about his job and how he pursues it. More recently, Neronha ran afoul of a Superior Court judge with a tweet criticizing one aspect of the court process. And all this comes as Neronha is contemplating a possible run for governor in 2026. Is this an early version of campaigning? Does Neronha think the state is moving with enough urgency to address key issues? And will he sail off after his term as AG is done or pursue another course?
Ian Donnis: Attorney General Peter Neronha, welcome back to The Public’s Radio.
Peter Neronha: Thank you.
Donnis: There’s a lot of uncertainty right now about the future of Roger Williams Medical Center in Providence and Our Lady of Fatima Hospital in North Providence. You’re focused on trying to keep the hospitals funded and operating. Is there anything that can be done to solidify their future for the long term?
Neronha: Yeah, there are. I think both the short term – in the near term need to be talked about. So short term, we are leveraging the money that we have in a bank account that I control to make sure they keep these hospitals operating in the near term and delivering for Rhode Islanders long term. All of health care in Rhode Island needs to be stabilized. It’s not an issue that is unique to these hospitals. They are, in a sense, a canary in a coal mine … Their owners don’t, in my view, care about health care. And that’s why we’re in this position long term for those hospitals and across healthcare in Rhode Island. We’ve got to do three things: we’ve got to fix our Medicaid reimbursements; we’ve got to fix our Medicare reimbursements, both of which lag other states; and we also have to focus on our commercial reimbursements. We need to bring in efficiencies. We really need to make sure our management is top notch. Because we’re so disadvantaged relative to our peers. And we know that, if a hospital closes, there’s an impact on other hospitals. And all of this needs to be thought through. We’re trying to do that in the office. I do think there’s a vacuum elsewhere in state government on that. That’s unfortunate. We’re doing everything we can to try to fill it.
Donnis: You’ve been ringing this alarm about the need for a long term strategy in Rhode Island on healthcare and hospitals for a few years now. Has there been any incremental progress beyond the attempt of your office to focus on some of these issues?
Neronha: Candidly, and I haven’t even, I haven’t seen it. Healthcare executives from Rhode Island are consistently coming to my office to strategize and talk. They recognize, I think, that any plan that’s going to be able to be implemented is going to have to come from my office in the next couple of years. And so we’re working hard to do that. One of the first components of it is, frankly, a reorganization, a proposed reorganization I have. I don’t have the ability to do it on my own, of how we regulate healthcare in Rhode Island, we’re siloedc… We can leverage more federal dollars. But we have to make sure that that Medicaid office is doing that. OHIC is in one place.
Donnis: Office of the Health Insurance Commissioner.
Neronha: They have caps on how much hospitals can be reimbursed. So they’re in another place. Health is in another place. And so we think certainly regulatory restructuring would be, is needed. But we also think all the other things already mentioned need to be on the table and addressed and focused on and fixed to get Rhode Island to a place where healthcare overall can thrive.
Donnis: We see how the owner of Roger Williams Medical Center and Our Lady of Fatima is Prospect Medical Holdings, a California based company, used to be partially owned by a private equity firm. And Prospect, as you say, seems more interested in making money than delivering healthcare. Does this show that there should be more regulation or perhaps even a prohibition on private equity working in the healthcare sphere?
Neronha: Oh, absolutely. You know, and it’s not just that they’re more interested in making money today. The trouble for our hospitals owned by Prospect and owned by hospitals owned by Prospect, even in neighboring Connecticut, is that Prospect has already made its money. And so once they’ve made their money, they don’t care about these hospitals anymore. You go across the border in Connecticut, there are three Prospect hospitals that are being sold to Yale – New Haven. Their financial condition is so bad that Yale – New Haven won’t buy them any longer unless there’s an $80 million infusion of cash from the state.
Donnis: So what should be done from a regulatory perspective?
Neronha: Look, private equity shouldn’t be allowed into the tent in the first place. You know, it was a mistake. But that does not necessarily criticism of that decision then. But what we know today is private equity needs to be kept out of healthcare; private equity doesn’t care about health care. They care about making money.
Donnis: How do you do that legally?
Neronha: In Rhode Island, at least I have the ability, the Department of Health has the ability, to block new owners of our healthcare systems, if we don’t think it’s best for Rhode Islanders writ large. There are standards for sure. But that’s the overall standard. And based on what I’ve learned from the Prospect experience, the possibility of me being convinced that a private equity ownership of a Rhode Island healthcare system would be good for Rhode Islanders is zero.
Donnis: Let’s switch gears – a Superior Court Judge Daniel Procaccini wants you to appear in his courtroom on December 5. You’ve been tweeting a lot this year, and he didn’t like one of your tweets that seem to contain some veiled criticism of him. Do you plan to go to that?
Neronha: Let’s back up for a minute. I have a lot of respect for Judge Procaccini. I’ve known him for a very long time. I do believe that inherent in our system of justice in Rhode Island is a weakness. And that’s the lack of a necessity that the prosecution agree to a jury-waived trial. That’s not a knock on any particular judge. It’s not a comment on any particular case.
Donnis: You did make a tweet about how there was, these cases seem to be happening more frequently in one particular court.
Neronha: In some particular courts, and that’s what I was going to get to. We know from our statistics, over the last decade, that two judges have done 49% of the jury-waived trials and 25 judges have done the other 51%. So here’s my point. It’s not that those judges are doing anything wrong. It’s not that those judges don’t have integrity. They do. They do. And I’ve known them for a long time. But I believe that for victims and the public, if nothing else, the appearance of a level playing field in terms of consent to a jury-waived trial ought to be that the state consents as well, and that’s true in 31 other states and in the federal system. And so that’s what I was advocating for. And let me just finish. If the public or Judge Procaccini interpreted my comments differently, then I regret that. But I don’t regret making the point, because I think it is a fair one for me to make, as the leader of my office.
Donnis: Are you going to go to the court to meet with Judge Procaccini on December 5?
Neronha: I don’t know. You know, the truth is, I am not convinced that he has the authority to summons me there for the purpose that appears to be what he’s articulated. So we’ll see how that plays out. But look, I don’t want to make this about Judge Procaccini and me. For me, it’s a policy point that I think needs to be addressed and will be addressed in the General Assembly. And that does not take away anything about my respect for Judge Procaccini or his integrity.
Donnis: You are contemplating a possible run for governor in 2026. What is your criteria on whether you will pull a trigger on that?
Neronha: Yeah, look, I think, you know, I answered that question. I’ll be concise. Ed Fitzpatrick asked me that question. Because I had said a couple years ago, I’ll never run, what has changed my outlook, why is it a possibility for me, and I don’t know whether I’m going to run or not. Healthcare is a burning issue that I won’t leave office with without doing everything I can to fix it. Climate change is another one. Those are two issues that are critical to people, the state of Rhode Island. And if I don’t feel like those issues are resolved by the time I leave office as Attorney General, it may be that I choose to try to serve the public going forward as well.
Donnis: Who did you vote for for governor last year?
Neronha: I don’t want to answer that question. You know, there’s no, I don’t think anything is gained by answering that question. I do think, though, that if I were not to run, then a candidate that I supported next time around would have to be one that I thought could address these issues in a way that would benefit the people in the state.
Donnis: We see how violent crime has trended down generally in America since the early 1990s. But on the other hand, there seems to be an uptick in civil violence. When we look at things like January 6, the attack on Paul Pelosi, the shooting of three Palestinian young men in Vermont earlier this week. As the state’s top prosecutor, I know you’re concerned about the proliferation of ghost guns, which is a whole separate nightmare. But how do we come back from this issue of civil violence?
Neronha: Look, whether that civil violence is driven by behavioral health or mental health issues or not, the truth is you can only keep a gun out of the hands of somebody, someone with a mental health issue, if they have been institutionalized against their will. Other than that circumstance, they can buy a firearm. So it’s … we can’t control for mental health in a way to avoid these most critical and dangerous incidents. What we need to do is reduce the number of guns that are available to people that would use them to harm others. And that’s some of the work we’ve been doing in the office since I started, and we just need to keep doing it.
Donnis: You and other state officials have supported legislation to outlaw the sale of new AR style rifles. Critics say these weapons were developed for the military and should not be in civilian hands. Is there a legal rationale for backing that up? Or do gun rights people have it right that the Second Amendment gives citizens the ability to – the legal ability to own and possess, and legally use these weapons?
Neronha: Well, look, I think the law, and from my perspective, the Constitution, does not reserve that right to them. And in fact, we had an assault weapons ban when I was a federal prosecutor on the line back in the 2000s. So I don’t recall if it was challenged, and if it was, then it wasn’t an issue before whatever courts were hearing it back then. Look, I think we made tremendous steps to getting high capacity magazines out of the hands, to the extent we can, of those who would use them. Those weapons, there’s no question, allow for more rapid fire with more lethal rounds in most instances. And so they cause more damage. You only have to talk to an ER doctor in a trauma center to know that, or another health care provider and in an ER setting. And so, look, to the extent we can get those firearms out of the hands of people, that’s obviously from my perspective, the thing we ought to do. It’s not gonna solve the whole problem. But it’s part of the solution.
Donnis: The Providence Journal’s Antonia Farzan reported this week on how you and Governor McKee are on the same page in opposing the release of identifying information about who has low number license plates in Rhode Island. You and the governor have had a bit of a frosty relationship. Why does the public not have a right to have this information?
Neronha: Well, the first thing I want to say is that the decisions we make in the office don’t depend on the strength of my relationship with the governor. It doesn’t, in a vacuum, but also because I have people that are responsible for these issues. The bottom line is this is that we make decisions about the APRA based on the law.
Donnis: APRA being the state’s Access to Public Records Act.
Neronha: Yes. Thanks, Ian. But the fact that we may say that the APRA, the law doesn’t require disclosure, doesn’t mean that it couldn’t be disclosed. Now, there is a federal statute involved here, which makes this a little bit different. And I won’t get into the details on that. But, you know, whether the governor – even if he could withhold them under the law, as we found, it may not mean that he has to. But that’s a decision for him and his administration and not for me.
Donnis: We’ve got to leave it there. Thank you so much for joining us, Attorney General Peter Neronha.
Neronha: Thank you.
