Latest news with #FamilyPlanningProgram
Yahoo
08-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
If we want to grow, we need to invest
"The New Hampshire House's proposed budget does not just hurt programs and the people they serve. It hurts our state's ability to compete in the 21st century." (Photo by Dana Wormald/New Hampshire Bulletin) After a winter full of guardrail-breaking politics, I arrived at the State House Tuesday on a rainy spring day, ready to protest and testify before the New Hampshire Senate about a budget I believe will shrink our state's future. Then came hours of thoughtful, passionate testimony from caregivers, health care workers, state and local officials, nonprofit leaders, and fellow parents. I had to leave before the Finance Committee got to my name on page 14 of the sign-up sheet, but I took solace in how many who came before me said versions of what was on my mind. Below, though, is the framing I didn't hear Tuesday that I still can't shake. As we think about a future that works for everyone in New Hampshire, I hope it reaches a persuadable audience. The New Hampshire House's proposed budget does not just hurt programs and the people they serve. It hurts our state's ability to compete in the 21st century. It doesn't fund a future. It retreats from it. We talk a lot in New Hampshire about economic growth and keeping young people here. About attracting workers and building strong communities. But budgets are where rhetoric meets reality. The budget passed by the House — now under review in the Senate — does not make New Hampshire more competitive. It makes it harder to stay, harder to raise a family, and harder to grow. Being pro-growth means being anti-poverty. It means investing in the people who make our New Hampshire work — in their housing, their child care, their health care, their education, their job training. But at a time when the U.S. economy just contracted by 0.3% — driven in part by trade imbalances and decreased government investment — this budget pulls back from the very people and services we should be supporting most. When state leaders offer only cuts, local property taxes jump just to keep the lights on. And with housing, child care, and everyday costs soaring, middle-income families are barely hanging on. Many of our teachers, nurses, and first responders can't even afford to live where they work. Across New Hampshire, we're short over 23,000 housing units. But the House budget eliminates the Housing Appeals Board, making it harder to build, even as 1 in 4 homes on the market now costs over $1 million. More than 16,000 Granite Staters are out of the workforce because they can't find child care. But in the proposed budget, there's no meaningful investment in providers or parents. The budget also eliminates the Family Planning Program. This strips access to affordable reproductive health care, contraception, and cancer screenings, especially for low-income and rural folks. We're still 15,000 workers short since the pandemic, but the House budget cuts job training and Medicaid provider rates, pushing caregivers and health care workers further out of reach. The $50 million cut to the UNH system is particularly shortsighted. Amid these workforce shortages, we're gutting one of our most vital talent pipelines for tradespeople, nurses, engineers, teachers, social workers, and in-state students who tend to stay and work locally. Many UNH campuses also serve rural and low-income communities already stretched thin. If we want young people to stay, work, and raise families here, we need to fund the things that make that possible — homes they can afford, schools they trust, child care they can find, and jobs they can build on. Gutting those things tells young people like me that this is not the state we grew up in. Are we still that state? Where if you work hard, play by the rules, and respect the fact that your neighbor's path isn't your own, you can still get ahead? These cuts don't tell that story. We're closing the Office of the Child Advocate as over 1,300 survivors of abuse at the Youth Development Center pursue justice. We're ending the Commission on Aging as 27% of our population will be 65 or older by 2030. Pulling $10 million from the Renewable Energy Fund while the Seacoast and Upper Valley face repeated flooding. Expanding education freedom accounts — siphoning public dollars into private schools with no accountability as public schools remain underfunded and understaffed. Eliminating the Council on the Arts amid constant assaults on cultural freedom and innovation — in the 'Live Free or Die' state. None of these actions solve problems. They shift burdens, weaken services, and undermine long-term growth. My wife and I are doing well. We have a safe home, reliable child care, and stable careers that help us pay for it all. But life in 2025 is exorbitantly expensive and a state that relies on high earners like us — while cutting the support that helps others rise — is not building a future. It's running out the clock, scaring off talent and investment, and pricing out the working people who keep us strong. There is still time to get this right. The Senate can reject this budget, close loopholes that let out-of-state investors avoid paying their fair share, bolster housing support, reinvest in public education and workforce training, and protect the public services families count on. And citizens across this state can keep demanding a smarter, more honest approach to growth. Real competition requires real investment. And making good on 'Live Free or Die' means funding the freedom to stay and thrive.
Yahoo
26-03-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
NH House Republicans propose cutting STD testing, cancer screening, birth control program
The New Hampshire Family Planning Program provides residents free and low-cost STD testing and treatment, birth control, cancer screenings, pregnancy tests, and counseling. (Getty Images) This story was updated with statements from the governor's office and Lamprey Health Care at 2:46 p.m. As Republicans in the New Hampshire House of Representative work to trim hundreds of millions of dollars from the state budget, a group of lawmakers has identified the New Hampshire Family Planning Program as a service to cut. The New Hampshire Family Planning Program provides residents free and low-cost STD testing and treatment, birth control, cancer screenings, pregnancy tests, and counseling. It costs the state roughly $840,000 to operate each year, according to state budget documents. It receives almost $1 million annually from the federal government. This comes amid the lengthy state budgeting process. In February, Gov. Kelly Ayotte proposed a nearly $16 billion budget for the next two years. Now, the state House of Representatives is in the process of reviewing, debating, and amending that budget. Ayotte's proposal relied on optimistic economic projections that predicted a quick comeback from years of lagging business tax revenue. However, the House was less bullish; the House Ways and Means Committee predicted revenues would be hundreds of millions of dollars less than the governor did. Now, the House is working to identify places to cut the budget to fit it to their projections. During a work session Tuesday, Republicans in House Finance Division III, one of three subcommittees working on that task, identified the Family Planning Program as a place to cut. That subcommittee voted, 5-4, along party lines to recommend the program be eliminated. 'Yes, I understand there are those that feel it shouldn't be cut,' Rep. Maureen Mooney, a Republican from Merrimack who serves as vice chair of the subcommittee. 'All of these are difficult decisions. Considering the situation, considering we have an obligation to work with the money we have, the money that Ways and Means projects, we have to take some drastic measures.' Mooney emphasized that the state is in 'a very difficult budget year.' Republicans in the subcommittee did this against the wishes of their Democratic counterparts. 'I think this is devastating,' Rep. Laura Telerski, the House Deputy Democratic leader and the ranking Democrat on the subcommittee, said. 'I think that just after 53 years of success with a program that this is problematic. We have low unwanted teen pregnancies. We're experiencing right now an outbreak in STDs, and I just think this is not where we need to cut.' Indeed, New Hampshire has the lowest pregnancy rate — 4.6 per 1,000 — for girls ages 15-19 of any state in the U.S., according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as of 2022, the most recent data available. And 2022 saw the highest incidence of gonorrhea and syphilis ever recorded (though chlamydia and HIV incidence remained stable while AIDS decreased) in New Hampshire, according to the New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Services. The move has also sparked concern from some of the vendors New Hampshire contracted to provide the services. 'We are very concerned about this proposal,' Sue Durkin, Co-CEO of Lamprey Health Care, said in a statement to the Bulletin. We have over 1,000 patients who receive these services. This proposal put their access to reproductive health services, medications, and needed health screenings at risk.' Before recommending the program be cut, the subcommittee briefly considered simply reducing funding to $5,000 a year in hopes that the Senate would be able to find the funding for the program when it reviews the budget later on in the process. They decided against that course of action. In order for this proposal to officially be added to the budget, the entire House will also have to vote to approve it. Then, the entire budget will have to be passed by the Legislature and signed by the governor with this amendment included for it to become law. Asked about this proposal, John Corbett, the governor's spokesman, said in a statement to the Bulletin that 'Governor Ayotte has always protected funding for preventative health care services for women and accordingly supported these resources in her budget.' The proposal has also drawn ire from left-leaning reproductive health groups. 'Eliminating New Hampshire's Family Planning Program is extremely shortsighted,' Kayla Montgomery, vice president of public affairs for Planned Parenthood New Hampshire Action Fund, said in a statement to the Bulletin. 'This program saves the state in public health costs and ensures Granite Staters with lower incomes receive essential preventive health care like birth control, STD testing and treatment, and cancer screenings. Health care organizations throughout the state are already stressed, and gutting the New Hampshire family planning program will only worsen health care outcomes in this state.' Planned Parenthood of Northern New England has sought for years to become part of the program as one of its vendors providing services. However, the state's Republican-led executive council has continually rejected their bids over objections to the fact that the organization also provides abortions.
