FOR THE MONITOR A few weeks back, I had some harsh words for Governor John Lynch’s State of the State Address. It’s only fair that I take some time to praise the best idea in that speech. Governor Lynch wants to consolidate dozens of antiquated state boards and commissions into a single Office of Professional Licensure. Over the years, New Hampshire has formed several dozen separate boards to license various professions. If you want to work as a professional dietician, massage therapist, landscape architect, or court reporter, you need to file an application, pass a test, and prove to a panel of state appointees that you’re qualified. We certainly expect our doctors to go to medical school and our lawyers to pass the bar exam, but I’m not sure if we need state oversight for the person telling me to eat more vegetables.Read More>>

Grant Bosse reports on the Senate Education Committee taking public testimony on the School Choice Scholarship Act. The hearing included House Education Chairman Mike Balboni, Senator Fenton Groen, and a debate over education values between Josiah Bartlett Center President Charlie Arlinghaus and Senator Molly Kelly. Read More>>

(CONCORD) Transportation Commissioner Chris Clement tells NH Watchdog that plans for a $250 million commuter rail project have been taken out of the state's Ten Year Highway Plan. Clement testified yesterday before the House Public Works and Highways Committee, saying that transportation revenues will be $1.5 billion short of paying for all the project's that lawmakers want to complete over the next decade. Documents presented to the Committee list the Capitol Corridor project, which would bring commuter rail service from the Massachusetts border as far north as Concord, as an unfunded priority. But Clement insists he has no plans to dust off the idea this year.Read More>>

Summary: Certificate of Need laws, or CONs, have been set up across the country under the assumption that rationing hospital construction and expansion would limit increases in health care costs. Four decades of experience have shown that CONs do not control costs, but do provide a significant barrier to entry to innovative health care facilities and limit competition in the health care marketplace. Faced with this evidence, CON supporters have created novel arguments to justify them, but these new rationales also fall under close scrutiny. New Hampshire should end its thirty-year experiment and repeal its Certificate of Need Law.Read More>>

For the Monitor Can New Hampshire really have too many ways to fight cancer? Our current hospitals think so, and are using the power of state government to keep competitors away. Cancer Treatment Centers of America wants to build a new facility in the Northeast, and is looking at New Hampshire. But there are two big hurdles to clear; the Medicaid Enhancement Tax and the state’s arduous Certificate Of Need process. Salem Representative Marilinda Garcia has introduced HR 1642 to waive both for facilities like CTCA.Read More>>

Annmarie Timmins reports in the Concord Monitor that a House Committee has decided that the way to address the failure of the Certificate of Need Board to control health care costs is to give the CON Board even more power to limit health care supply.Read More>>

Charlie Arlinghaus joined Dean Spiliotes and Albert Scherr on this morning's edition of The Exchange on NH Public Radio, debating the proper roles of the federal, state, and local governments on issues ranging from schools to health care.Read More>>

The New Hampshire Sunday News editorializes on the Senate-approved education funding amendment, tax caps, and Certificate of Need, highlighting the work that Josiah Bartlett Center Board Member Eugene Van Loan has done to help craft the amendment.Read More>>

This week, NH Watchdog reported that DOT Commissioner Chris Clement is not seeking federal funding for the $250 million Capital Corridor commuter rail project in this year's version of the Ten Year Highway Plan.Read More>>

Grant Bosse and Paul Westcott discuss the death of the Capital Corridor commuter rail project and the prospects for the Senate-approved education funding constitutional amendment in the NH House in this week's edition of NH Watchdog on WGIR. Read More>>