Fosters and UL Ed Boards Hit Senate Health Bill

Over the past 2 days the Ed Boards of Fosters and the Union Leader have hit the health care bill that the Senate is poised to pass tomorrow.

Fosters’ editorial offers many of the same points which have been making the rounds recently as to why the bill should be defeated.  They also pointed out where the Democrat members of the New Hampshire delegation erred in their support for failing to ask the right questions, all the while praising Sen. Gregg for his efforts to defeat the bill:

Why would this bill not take effect until 2014 yet tax increases will begin almost immediately?

Will young and healthy workers really stand to be jailed if they don’t buy insurance, as Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi has said?

And what about the deficit? Isn’t it smoke and mirrors to collect taxes for near half a decade before any spending then argue the health care plan will run a true surplus?

Meanwhile, today the UL hit Sen. Jeanne Shaheen for her vote on the bill which could have an impact in NH in more then one way, hitting her hard on her support for the Senate bill.

Maybe Jeanne Shaheen was one of the naive liberals who actually believed Barack Obama when he said while campaigning in New Hampshire in 2007 that he wouldn’t “play the game” in Washington, but instead would “end the game playing.”

Did she sit on her hands as other senators squeezed concessions from Senate Democratic leaders, making the health care bill less costly for their states, because she naively assumed no game playing was going on? Or did she vote against New Hampshire’s interests to please her party bosses?

…

Senate Democrats needed every single Democratic vote to pass the bill. But even though her vote was crucial, Shaheen did not hold out for similar protections for New Hampshire. Nor did she oppose the deals that shifted costs from Massachusetts and other states to New Hampshire. No, she voted to make New Hampshire pay more so Massachusetts, Vermont, Nebraska, Nevada and several other states could pay less.

The state’s Medicaid office says the bill Shaheen voted for will cost New Hampshire taxpayers an additional $47 million a year by 2019. And that’s probably understated.

They also opined on what other impacts her vote may have on the state and how her and her Democrat colleagues have let down the state:

Like Reps. Paul Hodes and Carol Shea-Porter before her, Shaheen defended her anti-New Hampshire vote by repeating general talking points handed to her from Democratic Party leaders.

Meanwhile, Gov. John Lynch knew what the costs of the bill would be, but his only objection was to meekly express “concerns” about it.

New Hampshire, your Democratic elected officials have set you up for a sales or income tax. And they did it because their party leaders in Washington told them to. Is this the change you voted for?

You know its a bad day when two of the state’s papers hit 3/4 of the state’s Congressional delegation.  Of course, the left will write off these editorials, they always do.  I have a feeling that Democrats in New Hampshire and around the country could be getting an earful when they finally return home from Washington.