NH Union Leader – May 6, 2025
By KEVIN LANDRIGAN, Staff Writer
While proclaiming May as Mental Health Awareness Month, Gov. Kelly Ayotte lobbied the state Senate Monday to reject cuts in the House-approved budget to Medicaid, community mental health centers and services for the developmentally disabled. “It is my hope that the Senate will restore that funding to make sure the work that is so important keeps getting done,” Ayotte said. “It starts with a budget that says we are keeping mental health at the forefront of what we do as a state.”
At the ceremony in the Executive Council chambers, Health and Human Services Commissioner Lori Weaver said the state has already achieved many of the recommendations made in its 10-year Mental Health Plan. The state’s “Mission Zero” initiative has reduced to none at times the number of adults or children in emergency boarding rooms waiting for a mental health bed, she said. Increased spending on prevention and intervention, along with mobile crisis teams, a rapid response unit, peer support and suicide prevention work, are all efforts that have also been stepped up, Weaver said. “Despite the positive gains we know there is more work to do,” Weaver said. “Everyone deserves the care they need to build healthy lives.”
Susan Stearns, executive director for the National Alliance for Mental Illness New Hampshire, said progress gets made by ordinary citizens willing to share their struggles.
“We are profoundly aware of the power of sharing your story,” Stearns said, speaking in front of a poster that read, “In Every Story There is Strength.” The House-proposed cuts to the programs are likely to become a talking point by many speakers when the Senate Finance Committee holds its one and only public hearing on the budget Tuesday afternoon beginning at 1 p.m. in Representatives Hall. The first cut Ayotte highlighted that the House made was a 3% reduction in the rate paid to health care providers in the federal-state Medicaid program. The current budget increased Medicaid provider rates by double digits for some specialists. This came after the association representing all 26 acute-care hospitals told the Legislature it didn’t want any increase for its members.
“I do not believe that is sustainable. We want to make sure the provider community remains strong and to go backwards on their rates is the wrong approach in my view,” Ayotte said. The House cut spending on mental health programs by $40 million compared to the budget Ayotte proposed in February. Ayotte singled out the House eliminating her proposal to give community mental health centers $10 million in direct aid over the next two years to help cover some of the free care they provide to those who are uninsured or can’t afford the copayments.
“This doesn’t make them entirely whole but at least it’s a recognition on the state’s part,” Ayotte said. In her budget, Ayotte proposed spending more than $1 billion over the next two years on services for the developmentally disabled. The House cut that amount by $31 million, and Ayotte said she feared a return of physically or emotionally impaired adults needing services and having to be put on hold before receiving them. “We do not want to have a disability waitlist,” Ayotte said. State Rep. Jess Edwards, R-Auburn, chairs the working group on the House Finance Committee that wrote the recommendations for HHS programs. Despite the cut to services for the developmentally disabled, Edwards said there is a failsafe law that would allow Weaver to ask the Legislative Fiscal Committee for more money if needed to avoid the return of a waitlist.