By Steve Peoples, Journal State House Bureau

Governor Carcieri is the face of Caring this month.

Literally.

The Rhode Island governor is featured on the cover of the recently-released June edition of Caring magazine, the publication of the National Association for Home Care and Hospice.

In the cover photo, Carcieri is holding Concetta Ball's hand, sitting at the 78-year-old stroke victim's kitchen table.

Text on the cover reads: "Governor Donald Carcieri: Fighting to protect the freedoms of aged, infirm, disabled, and dying citizens."

Inside, there's a nine-page spread in which the governor describes Medicaid changes that encourage seniors and the disabled to be treated in their homes instead of institutions.

The interviewer did not ask Carcieri to explain his budget-balancing proposals to cut 18,600 disabled and elderly Rhode Islanders from the state's Pharmaceutical Assistance to the Elderly program, strip dental benefits from 38,000 parents on subsidized health care, and eliminate health insurance coverage from 28 pregnant women.

The state budget adopted by the General Assembly last week preserved those programs.