The restructuring of Medicaid in the U.S. Senate’s Better Care Reconciliation Act of 2017 will be devastating to Medicaid expansion here in New Hampshire.
Our state relies on Medicaid dollars for its battle against the opioid crisis, providing improved, evidenced-based, quality care to our citizens with mental health illness and providing vital resources for our critical access hospitals.
The New Hampshire Nurses Association, and the 23,000 nurses we represent, knows first-hand the importance of caring for these vulnerable patients. We do it every day.
As an emergency room nurse, I’ve personally witnessed patients with mental health illness being warehoused in an emergency department for days and days waiting for a scarce bed in a psychiatric unit to become available. I have personally witnessed patients seeking treatment for heroin and opioid misuse problems being told that there are no treatment beds available. I have personally seen patients in respiratory distress from an exacerbation of congestive heart failure only to learn that these patients have been taking their medications only every other day because they can’t afford them daily.
Medicaid expansion extended health care coverage to our most vulnerable citizens, our children, our elderly, our handicapped and our citizens suffering from mental illness and substance use disorders. The New Hampshire Nurses Association urges Sens. Jeanne Shaheen and Maggie Hassan to do all they can to defeat the BCRA as currently proposed.
We encourage our members with family or friends in states such as Maine, Nevada, Alaska, Ohio and Arizona to urge these family members and friends to contact one of these key senators and ask them to vote no on the BRCA.
JOAN WIDMER
Concord
(The writer is the executive director of the New Hampshire Nurses Association.)