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Week Sixteen - April 25, 2008
The Advocate is a new electronic tool provided to our
business members and regional state legislators. This publication,
sponsored by Devine
Millimet & Branch and designed by ActiveEdge,
is intended to keep you up to date with all the latest happenings
in Concord concerning legislation impacting businesses.
We hope you enjoy this weekly electronic publication!
In today's Boston Globe, there is an article outlining how votes
in the Massachusetts Legislature are often taken in secret, behind
closed doors. Sometimes Massachusetts legislators (who are paid
$60,000) make committee votes by Blackberry - they don't even
come to the State House. As we judge the pros and cons of the
legislation which is working its way through the New Hampshire
House and Senate, let us pause to be thankful for the real "New
Hampshire advantage:" a true citizen legislature, which operates
in the open and holds itself accountable to the citizens it represents!
Technology
Innovation Hopefully to be Studied
Following up on last week's outpouring of opposition to HB
686, which regulates remotely readable devices, the Senate
Commerce Committee unanimously (6-0) recommended HB 686 for interim
study. Now, the House member who is the Chairman of the RFID (radio
frequency identification device) Commission is lobbying the Senate
to attach an amendment on the prohibition of identification devices
implanted in humans and credit card skimming, both of which were
originally forwarded by the Commission in the House. Why? Our
guess is that the privacy coalition wants the Senate to pass something
- anything - so they can ask for a committee of conference and
once again try to pass onerous legislation regulating innovative
technology and NH commerce. With so many more important economic
issues swirling around the legislature, it is hard to understand
why the legislature would want to increase the cost and burden
of doing business in New Hampshire at this time. Hopefully, the
Senate will act on the Commerce Committee's recommendation of
interim study and leave this issue to be solved by the Commission,
which should bring a comprehensive bill forward in the next biennium.
HazMat User
Fees Lingering
The Senate Energy, Environment and Economic Development Committee
this week reconvened the public hearing on HB 1594,
the hazardous waste reporting and fee bill. Again, the room was
full, mainly with opponents to the bill. Two issues: the reporting
requirements are onerous, and the fee is a new user tax. The Fire
Marshal testified that he is anticipating a $1 million deficit
in his reserve fund. He presently cannot charge maintenance or
readiness costs to those responsible for the hazardous waste dilemmas.
He can only charge for expenses. The HazMat program cannot survive
according to the Fire Marshal, without new user fees and new and
expanded reporting. According to him, the state depends on user
fees for revenue. He does not think this program should be a line
item in the budget, but rather a user fee, i.e. a tax. If the
state does not believe the program worthy of funding through the
budget, then is it essential? There was tremendous testimony by
business concerning the burdensome reporting. It looks like the
Fire Marshal might compromise on reporting requirements in order
to keep the user fee tax alive. Law Warehouses of Nashua thought
this bill's fee/tax structure so onerous that they personally
sent a representative to Concord to oppose the legislation. No
one has an issue with HazMat teams, just the user fee tax and
reporting. The committee will vote next week.
New Telecommunications
Director at DRED
The Senate passed SB 412 which creates a new
Director of Telecommunications at the Department of Resource &
Economic Development. The House Science and Technology Committee
was prepared to interim study the bill but it now looks like they
will try to pass it. Again, no one has a problem with the position;
it is the funding that is at issue. The bill not only creates
a new position during the Governor’s freeze period, it also
assesses a new fee/tax on regulated landline telephone customers
in order to fund the salary of this new position (and, this being
done at a time when the Governor has said no new fees or taxes).
Again, why not a line-item in the budget for the new position?
More importantly, this effort creates a horrendous precedent for
how the State funds its staff at various departments. Next, we
will see insurance companies paying fees for new positions at
Health and Human Services; financial service companies paying
fees for new position at the Insurance Department; and, electric
and gas companies paying fees for new position at the Department
of Environmental Services.
SB 540
(Wellness)
A House Commerce subcommittee met Thursday to consider SB
540, legislation that will require small employer carriers
to offer standard wellness plans in the small employer market.
A salient topic of discussion emerged rather quickly - carrier
concerns over whether they might be forced to write the standard
wellness plans at inadequate rates. While the Insurance Department
assured subcommittee members that standards of rate adequacy would
remain unaltered by SB 540, the carriers sought changes that would
more clearly provide protection on rate adequacy, notwithstanding
the bill’s promise to provide standard wellness plans at
rates at or below 10% of US DOL wages.
One got the sense from the tenor of discussion that subcommittee
members had been discouraged by both legislative and executive
department interests, from entertaining any amendment to the bill.
Representative John Hunt from Rindge, one of the subcommittee
members, expressed exasperation with the palpable resistance to
amending the bill, remarking that he had never seen his Committee
display such a strong reluctance to consider reasonable amendments.
Despite continuing resistance, the carrier concerns seemed to
resonate rather more strongly than might first have been expected,
raising the possibility that the subcommittee may be more open
to amendment at the final meeting next week. Stay tuned.
SB 312
(Obesity Coverage)
Mandated coverage for obesity and morbid obesity was also considered
by a House Commerce subcommittee yesterday. Senator Robert Clegg,
the prime sponsor of SB 312, was in attendance
and as he did at the initial hearing, provided compelling reasons
for passage of the bill. He also seemed nonetheless realistic
about the bill’s chance for passage this session. Given
a previous House Commerce Committee recommendation of interim
study on a similar measure, introduced in 2007 and sent to interim
study by the full House earlier this session, securing an inconsistent
disposition may have seemed unlikely.
As the discussion continued yesterday, subcommittee members and
interested parties seemed to coalesce around sending the measure
to the Insurance Department for mandate review. Confidence was
expressed from a number of different quarters that such a review
would likely demonstrate that bariatric surgical procedures should
be available when medically necessary. An interesting offshoot
of the discussion was an initiative to amend either a House or
Senate bill to require insurers to give notice to insured’s
when procedures previously covered are subject to an exclusion
in a renewal contact. A growing trend of exclusions on coverage
for bariatic surgery during the last several years prompted both
the 2007 bill and this year’s bill. At the very least, legislators
want purchasers to get a heads-up on such exclusions.
J.
Christopher Williams
President & CEO
Greater Nashua Chamber of Commerce
151 Main St.
Nashua, NH 03060
Phone: 603.881.8333
Fax: 603.881.7323
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