Democratic Rep. Paul Hodes is going after Republican Senate candidate Kelly Ayotte on health care.

Hodes, so far the only Democrat running for the Senate, jumped on Ayotte's comments last week that the Democrats' health care reform plan ignores "commonsense solutions" including "reducing the number of mandates so that we have greater policy choices."

The Hodes camp interpreted Ayotte's remarks to mean "no mandates." As in, roll back New Hampshire's mandates on women's ob-gyn care, prenatal care and breast cancer screenings.

"I frankly am disappointed that Kelly Ayotte . . . apparently supports a position that would roll back critical protections for New Hampshire families," Hodes told reporters. "When they talk about removing man-

dates from insurance companies, they want to take us back to a place worse than the status quo."

Ayotte responded that "of course" she supports mandates for women's care. "What I do not support are mandates that require people to purchase insurance policies that cover things like aromatherapy, hair implants and gastric bypass surgery."

We assume Bob Clegg would disagree with Ayotte - he's the former Republican state senator who introduced legislation requiring New Hampshire insurance companies to cover medically necessary gastric bypass surgery.

Ayotte spokesman Brooks Kochvar said Ayotte was talking nationally. There are no aromatherapy mandates in New Hampshire, and the state mandate for hair implants relates to cases of "medical necessity" - hair prostheses for cancer patients or those with scalp injuries.

That issue aside, what are Ayotte's thoughts on health reform?

Ayotte says she supports allowing insurance companies to sell plans across state lines, which would encourage competition.

She would allow individuals to get tax deductions for the cost of their health insurance, the same way businesses can deduct those costs.

She wants to allow small businesses to buy health insurance as a group. She also supports tort reform.

"You add those things together, you drive down the cost of health insurance and make sure you have high-quality, affordable health care," Kochvar said.

Most of these are ideas that state Senate Republicans laid out as part of their legislative agenda. And all the ideas were included in the national platform laid out by congressional Republicans.

Each proposal has pros and cons. Buying insurance across state lines could be difficult because each state has its own regulatory structure. Small business associations would need to be large enough to have sufficient buying power. On the other hand, criticism of the Democrats' health care bill, with its individual mandates and Medicaid expansion, is not exactly muted.

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