Crossover

March 27 is Crossover Day in the NH legislature. It’s the day when the House turns over their bills to the Senate, and the Senate returns the favor. This year there was so much delay and obstructionism that there was some doubt as to whether the deadline would actually be met. The House had 2 voting session days throughout the month of March, and the Speaker threatened to add a third session day on March 27.

It is difficult to know what the obstructionist’s goal is in holding everything up. They aren’t doing the People’s business. They aren’t enacting legislation, or doing what is best for the state. They are wasting taxpayer dollars and treating their colleagues with a glaring lack of respect.  They get all caught up in the drama of it; adult sized boys, buzzing around the chamber for whispered consultations and making “secret” signals from the sidelines. These aren’t votes they can win - the goal is just to slow the process down as much as possible. As I’ve said before, this is what you get when you elect people who hate government to BE the government.

There were 13 roll call votes on the March 12 session day. Two of them concerned a mandatory headlight use bill. That bill was debated for 2 hours, even though everyone in the chamber knew it wasn’t going anywhere. The whole process did, at least, amuse the New York Times reporter I was sitting next to. A bill regulating the use of alkaline hydrolysis as a means of disposing of human remains provided a stage for Rep. Jordan Ulery to leap upon and very dramatically describe the process of alkaline hydrolysis to the few legislators who stayed in the chamber.  The same bill had been proposed last year. This wasn’t new information, but when gumming up the works is the goal, no corpse must be left un-described. No one was going to be forced to dispose of a dead person this way unless they wanted to, but the loudest believers in freedom and liberty only seem to do so when its convenient for them. If a free gun came with alkaline hydrolysis, they’d be lining up around the block to throw Granny into the chamber.

There was also a lengthy debate that same day on repealing the death penalty. To the credit of all, that was mostly an intelligent and respectful debate. Most of our Carroll County delegation voted for repeal, and the bill passed the House. By the time you read this, the Senate Judiciary Committee will have had a public hearing on the bill. NH has spent $7 million so far on the death penalty case of Michael Addison, and we’re nowhere near done. The death chamber hasn’t been built. The drugs – Europe won’t sell us the drugs any more, because we’re barbarians. We don’t know what kind of drugs we’ll be using, or how much they’ll cost. Expect the entire shebang to tally up to near $20 million. Remember that, as you drive down East Conway Road. Assuming you return from that voyage be sure to ask Representatives Chandler, Buco, and McConkey where the money’s going to come from to execute that one guy.

Speaking of warm and fuzzy, a truly significant piece of legislation was recently passed and signed into law by the governor. Medicaid expansion will ensure that many low-wage workers in the North Country will have access to health insurance. A report recently issued by the Robert Woods Johnson Foundation and the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute found that Coos County is the least healthy county in NH. Carroll County wasn’t far behind. In both Coos and Carroll, 17% of the population is uninsured. In both Coos and Carroll 18% of the population engages in excessive drinking. In Coos 18% of the population is in fair or poor health. The ratio of patients to mental health providers is 932:1. There is 7.7% unemployment in Coos, and 23% child poverty. In Carroll County there is 20% child poverty, and 17% of residents have severe housing problems. In Grafton County, 15% of the population is uninsured.

The bill originated in the NH Senate, where our own Senator Jeb Bradley was a supporter. The vote in the House fell largely – but not entirely – along party lines. There were a few Republicans who voted for people over ideology. Not many, but there were a few from the North Country. One of the conservative talking points suggested that “those people” would have no incentive to work if they got “free” health care. Most of us  know how hard people work up here just to stay afloat. Affordable health care isn’t going to pay their rent or put groceries on the table. It may well make the difference between preventative care and expensive “I waited because I couldn’t afford to go to the doctor” kind of care.

Given the dire situation in the North Country, it was depressing (though unsurprising) to learn that our newly minted Executive Councilor, Joe Kenney, voted against approving Medicaid Expansion. In other words, one of his first acts in office was to vote against the best interests of nearly 50% of the population in his district. Ray Burton would not have voted that way, but then, Ray was often described as the “champion of the north country,” a sobriquet that will never be applied to Joe Kenney.

Everyone should spend a session day at the State House to witness the full spectacle. The General Court website has streaming audio on session days, which I encourage folks to listen to, but it is not the same as being there to see all of the sideline drama. I’m pleased to report that no one from the Carroll County delegation is a major player in Obstructionist Theater, but all of you really should go see your representatives in action. It might well change the way you vote in November.

NH County Health Rankings

© sbruce 2014  

Published in the 4-4-14 issue of the Conway Daily Sun newspaper

They Touch Our Food

The end of the legislative session is fast approaching. The new budget for the state is supposed to be in place by July 1. The budget passed by the House was dismantled by the pouty Senate, and now goes to a Committee of Conference, where the two branches must come together and hammer out some sort of compromise.

The Senate is crawling with ambitious folk, using this budget as a springboard to higher office. One of them is former Congressman turned State Senator Jeb Bradley. He is desperate for higher office. Rumors abound that he’s going to run for governor or possibly even the US Senate. Others include Andy Sanborn and Chuck Morse. Their actions and their votes are all about that ambition, and not at all reflecting concern for their constituents or their state. Of course, that’s been the hallmark of this Senate. Obstructionism passing as “work.”

It was illustrated perfectly by Bradley, during a recent debate on a minimum wage bill. The bill didn’t ad a penny to the minimum wage, merely put back into statute the ability for NH to set it’s own min. wage. During the debate, Bradley referred (numerous times) to the sponsors of the bill as “people of good intentions”, even as he argued against a bill that was going to have zero fiscal impact. If their intentions were good, what does that say about Bradley’s?

Fortunately Bradley has not been appointed to the Committee of Conference that will be working out a budget compromise. It seems our NH GOP Senators are so miffed about the fate of their poorly written gambling bill that they’re refusing to raise any revenue.

That’s it in a nutshell. The ideologues of the far right don’t want to raise any revenue. They don’t care if all of our bridges fall down. They don’t care if any NH child gets an education. They don’t care if our state runs smoothly. In fact, that’s the last thing they want. They want to make sure that our state runs poorly, so they can point to it as gummint failure. That they are the architects of that failure is nothing that they ever have to answer for.

Sooner or later the lack of spending on infrastructure and education are going to become a big enough problem that even they can’t ignore it. When businesses refuse to come to NH because of it, the far right anti-government crowd won’t be able to ignore it any longer. NH is already recovering from the economic collapse of 2008 more slowly than any of the states around us. Massachusetts, despite their taxin’ and regulatin’ is doing pretty well. NH is not a poor state. NH is a cheap state.

Speaking of cheap, the NH Senate is opposed to the Medicaid expansion being embraced by most of the other states in the nation. Well known liberal moon-bat Jan Brewer of Arizona decided it would be a good thing for Arizona. Legendary pinko, Rick Scott of Florida has embraced the idea, even if his legislature has not.  Expanded Medicaid would give 58,000 low wage workers in NH some health insurance. The federal government is fully funding the expansion for 3 years. In NH that means $2.5 billion over the next 7 years. It would cost the state $85 million. Obviously the state is making out on the deal.  But let’s be clear, this isn’t “free.” These are our tax dollars, coming home to our state. NH is a donor state. We get back about $0.67 for every tax dollar we send to Washington. That means we’re funding states like New Mexico, where they get back $2.63 on the dollar. Or Alaska, where they get $1.93 for every dollar – and they have oil. Not taking this money isn’t going to save NH a dime. We’ll just continue to be a donor state.

The free marketeers love to tell us that what we need to “fix” health care in NH is “competition.” If only we’d allow it, the free market will just move right into NH and give us all kinds of insurance company options to choose from. Insurance too cheap to meter! Except that it won’t. The top two insurance conglomerates control about 60% of the US market. One of them controls NH – WellPoint/Anthem Blue Cross. The entire population of NH is less than the population of any major metropolitan area in the nation. There is no incentive for any insurance company to come here.

The state can withdraw from the expanded Medicaid program at any time. The state could write a provision spelling that out quite clearly (as the Maine legislature did) so that there’s no doubt. Not taking a big wad of our own cash back is just the kind of thinking we can expect from the folks who pride themselves on their Judeo-Christian family values. They’d rather see that wad o’cash go to Arizona or New Mexico. Or even…Massachusetts.

Low wage workers are the folks who wait on you in coffee shops, restaurants and convenience stores. They touch your food. Low wage workers are also at your mum’s house, wiping her bum and preparing her food. These are not people who have insurance, or paid sick days. All of us should want these people to have access to health insurance. It’s the right thing to do.

“To know what is right and not do it is the worst cowardice.”  Confucius




© 2013 sbruce  Published as a regular bi-weekly column in the Conway Daily Sun newspaper