NH News

The Department of Health and Human Services continues transitioning to a new Medicaid program.

Beginning Tuesday HHS officials have scheduled public meetings to discuss upcoming changes.

Health and Human Services wants to officially kick-off its new managed Medicaid program in December.

But a lot has to happen to meet that target.

HHS Commissioner Nick Toumpas says these meetings are designed to help healthcare providers and the 140,000 current Medicaid patients get up to speed.

At the beginning of this school year, Spaulding High School in Rochester took a big step. They put in a new grading system, got rid of final exams, and reworked how they thought about giving grades in general. The change at Spaulding is part of a bigger change happening all over the Granite State.

Volunteers across the state will begin monitoring rivers for the invasive species, Didymo. 

The New Hampshire Rivers Council is launching a new program to train volunteers to report early signs of the cold-water-loving single-celled algae, known as rock snot.

The council’s Michele Tremblay says Didymo is now moving into the state’s rivers and streams.

The New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Services continues to work with Exeter Hospital to determine the source and scope of the hepatitis C outbreak.

All 10 affected individuals—9 patients and 1 employee— have had a connection with the hospital’s cardiac catheterization lab. They have been diagnosed with the same strain of the virus.

Exeter Hospital has expanded testing to include patients associated with the lab between April 2011 and August 2011—that’s several months beyond the original timeline.

New Hampshire voters will decide in November whether or not to add a ban on personal income taxes to the state’s constitution.

Six more patients at the Exeter Hospital have been infected with hepatitis C, bringing the total to 10.

The New Hampshire Supreme Court heard oral arguments this morning on a challenge to a plan to redraw the districts for the State’s House of Representatives.

The five petitioners representing towns across the Granite State argue that the House plan is too rigid in its interpretation of the US constitution’s one-man-one-vote clause. A lawyer for the petitioners, Martin Honigberg, says that a looser interpretation is not only legal, but required by an amendment to the New Hampshire constitution.

This year’s effort to pass a school funding constitutional amendment failed where such efforts tend to fail – the New Hampshire house. 

Enacting any constitutional amendment is tough. It requires a three-fifths vote by both House and Senate, and two-thirds support from voters at the polls.  Add to this the fact this amendment deals with school funding and that lawmakers have killed 80-odd  Claremont-inspired amendments over the past 14 years, and the guardedness of even the boldest of lawmakers is understandable.