NH House Cuts Would Decimate Social Safety Net

by: William Tucker

Wed Mar 16, 2011 at 06:00:00 AM EDT

Elaine Grant, NHPR, examines the impact the House Finance Committee's proposed Health and Human Services budget would have on the Granite State's social safety net.

The House Finance Committee has proposed cuts that would decimate the budgets of hospitals, community health centers, mental health centers and other organizations that make up the social safety net.

"We did a quick assessment of how many patients would lose their health care as a result of those reductions, and we estimate that's going to be close to 12,000 patients."

The cuts would be felt keenly in the North Country, where community health centers provide the only primary care in Berlin and Gorham.

And they’ll hurt low-income children in Manchester. In addition to its broad-based cuts, the House Finance Committee has proposed eliminating $75,000 that goes directly to Child Health Services in Manchester. CHS serves 2500 children and teenagers, most of whom live in poverty. ... And that means 500 to 800 kids would lose their medical care.

While GOP lawmakers point to the state's budget shortfall as justification for the draconian cuts, Mark Fernald counters that previous Legislatures would have looked for new revenue sources to maintain basic services.

The current budget crisis is not due to runaway spending; it’s due to a huge drop in revenues. State tax revenues decreased more than 9 percent in 2009 and have yet to re-cover.

In the past, the Legislature would have tinkered with state taxes to maintain state services. Not this Legislature.

The majority party adheres to an ideology that no part of government is so important as to justify any change in our revenue structure. If revenues do not meet needs, then needs will not be met.

Measuring state and local taxes as a percentage of personal income, New Hampshire has the second lowest level of taxation in the country.

We are better than this.