Will Stewart, Greater Manchester Chamber of Commerce 

While House leaders say it ain't so, it certainly appears that the GOP-controlled House is out to spite the GOP-controlled Senate, as the latter has killed or significantly altered a number of House-passed bills in recent days and weeks.

Case in spite point is Senate Bill 295, which extends and increases the state's investment in research and development via the state R&D tax credit program.

On Wednesday, the House decided to muck up this pro-business bill by adding to it an amendment requiring a 24-hour waiting period before an abortion may be performed.

Yes, you read that correctly. The House added very controversial abortion language - language that was rejected by the Senate - to a bill that is completely business oriented and has nothing whatsoever to do with abortion. As a result, this important pro-business bill, which was passed unanimously by the Senate in its "clean" form, is in jeopardy.

After the House passed its amended version of the bill, the bill was referred to the House Finance Committee for further review. We strongly encourage the committee to remove the non-germane abortion language from SB 295 and for the full House to pass the "clean" bill as unanimously approved by the Senate.

Keeping health costs down and a level playing field intact

There aren't many people, it seems, who don't agree that the state's Certificate of Need (CON) law is need of revision. This law requires proposed medical facilities and expansions to pass a needs assessment of sorts before being built. But House Bill 1617 seeks to eliminate CON in its entirety, which is why the Chamber opposes the bill.

HB 1617 is one of two House bills currently before the Senate that is aimed at allowing Cancer Treatment Centers of America to enter the state without having to go through the same CON process as every other hospital and medical facility in New Hampshire. The two bills were combined by the Senate Health and Human Services Committee yesterday in a move that is sure to further exacerbate tensions between the Senate and House, where both bills originated and had the blessing of House leadership.

The CON process, as imperfect as it may be, is designed to ensure that any institutional health care services provide the highest quality of care that is available to the citizens of our state, as well as to promote collaboration among health care providers to provide better care and to manage the increase in health care costs. By going through the CON process, projects that don't stand up to regulatory scrutiny are withdrawn, and worthy projects are further improved and strengthened as different aspects of the project are examined.

The CON process maintains a level playing field for all medical facilities in the state and works to keep costs down by limiting the capacity of the state's health care system. Counter intuitive as that might sound, research has shown that more capacity in the health care system - more hospitals, imaging centers, and specialists - leads to higher utilization and increased costs.

In its amendments to HB 1617, the Senate Health and Human Services Committee made several big changes to the bill including postponing CON repeal by five years. It also changes the board's membership significantly, including the removal of hospital officials. In their place would be designees of the Department of Health and Human Services and the Insurance Department, as well as three resident "consumers."

If this bill makes it back to the House, look for more fireworks.

UCC revisions - technical, but necessary

On Tuesday, John Weaver, chair of the Chamber's Government Affairs Committee, testified in front of the House Commerce Committee in support of Senate Bill 204, which seeks to revise Article 9 of the Uniform Commercial Code, relative to secured transactions, as proposed by the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws.

The Uniform Commercial Code (UCC), first published in 1952, was created in an effort to harmonize the laws of sales and other commercial transactions in all 50 states. SB 204 would make technical amendments to Article 9, as adopted by General Court more than 10 years ago. Chief among these amendments is "Alternative B," which leaves intact the requirement that a financing statement use a debtor's "individual name," but provides that the name on the driver's license will also be sufficient as well as the debtor's surname and first personal name.

If that makes little sense to you, you're not alone. Indeed, the bill's sponsor in the House, Rep. John Hunt, R-Rindge, admitted during his testimony that he hadn't even read the bill!

Be that as it may, and granted that SB 204 is not the most exciting bill, it will bring New Hampshire law in greater conformity with that of other states, a uniformity which can serve to lower transaction fees across the board.