The Trump-Sununu-Vose Agenda: End Health Care, Deny Climate Change & Ignore Opioid Crisis
- Holly Shulman
- Sep 24, 2019
- 3 min read
Updated: Nov 20, 2020
With the New Hampshire Trump “Victory" Team set to knock doors tonight for Chris Sununu and Michael Vose, it’s clear that their reckless agendas are wrong for Epping. “Donald Trump, Chris Sununu, and Michael Vose are three peas in a climate-denying, health care-repealing, opioid crisis-ignoring pod,” said New Hampshire Democratic Party Spokesperson Holly Shulman. Here are the facts about what a Trump-Sununu-Vose agenda would mean for Epping and New Hampshire: Trump, Sununu & Vose Want to Deny Health Care to Thousands of Granite Staters TRUMP wanted to repeal the Affordable Care Act and kick thousands of Granite Staters off of their health insurance. “President Donald Trump approved a surprise decision to push for the complete elimination of the Affordable Care Act in the courts. If it succeeded, millions of Americans would lose private insurance or Medicaid coverage and the health care system would be thrown into chaos.” [NBC News, 3/27/19] SUNUNU vetoed a bill to increase rates for substance abuse and mental health treatment providers. "Gov. Chris Sununu vetoed a bill to increase funds to substance abuse and mental health treatment providers...Supporters of the bill said the funding was urgent for the providers, who have faced dramatic funding cut-backs..." [Concord Monitor, 6/10/19] VOSE was concerned the GOP’s 2017 health care repeal effort didn’t go far enough to “fully repeal Obamacare’s massive expansion of Medicaid.” “We are deeply concerned that the bill does not fully repeal Obamacare’s massive expansion of Medicaid to the able-bodied—the source of most of the law’s spending and its enrollment—and encourages states to expand their programs until the end of 2019. An immediate freeze would allow enrollees to transition off of the rolls and into work over time.” [Letter To Paul Ryan And Mitch McConnell, 3/17/17] Trump, Sununu & Vose Are Ignoring the Facts and Taking Their Eye Off the Ball When It Comes to the Opioid Crisis TRUMP repeatedly sought to slash funds for Medicaid and eliminate Medicaid expansion, which is key to fighting the opioid crisis in New Hampshire. “The spending plan calls for a cut of nearly $1.5 trillion in Medicaid over 10 years and for $1.2 trillion to be added for a new ‘Market Based Health Care Grant’ — that is, the block grants that would start in 2021. It also would eliminate funding for Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act has gone to about three dozen states over the past five years.” [Washington Post, 3/11/19] SUNUNU neglected a program that aims to stop drug overdoses in New Hampshire. “A committee that was put in place to review overdose deaths in New Hampshire hasn't met in more than a year, News 9 has learned. The Drug Overdose Fatality Review Committee was created in 2016 by an executive order from then-Gov. Maggie Hassan. It met several times and issued a report but hasn't met recently…Officials from Gov. Chris Sununu's office said they were made aware a few months ago that the review committee had stopped meeting.” [WMUR, 9/18/19] VOSE said the cure for the opioid epidemic was “more and better jobs” because “productive hard-working people don’t seek solace in drugs and alcohol, don’t become depressed, and don’t abuse their children.” "Sen. Feltes gripes that not letting a new budget tamper down this business growth and prosperity deprives the state of $90 million in revenue to support, in his words, ‘child protection, the opioid epidemic, the mental health crisis…and education funding.’ But as Ronald Reagan once observed, the cure for all these problems is more and better jobs. Productive, hard-working people don’t seek solace in drugs and alcohol, don’t become depressed, and they don’t abuse their children, instead actively participating in their education.” [Michael Vose for State Representative, Facebook, 7/7/19] Trump, Sununu & Vose are All Climate Change Deniers who Have Opposed Clean Energy at Every Turn. TRUMP called climate change a hoax. Donald Trump said, "Obama's talking about all of this with the global warming and…a lot of it's a hoax. It's a hoax. I mean, it's a money-making industry, okay? It's a hoax, a lot of it." [Trump rally, 12/30/2015] SUNUNU said “the jury really is still out” on climate change. “So, what we are seeing this year is not driven by climate change…And this is what I’ll tell you—Is that if somebody thinks they absolutely know or absolutely don’t know whether it is happening or not happening—they don’t. Because the jury really still is out.” [Concord Radio News, 3/21/16] VOSE does not believe climate change is happening. In a blog post about climate on Michael Vose's website titled "Science, or Not?" he writes: “A quick search about global warming will turn up a surprising wealth of scientific studies by credentialed authors that cast serious doubt on the claims of impending disaster. But people purporting to believe in science dismiss these studies as somehow invalid.” [Michael Vose, 6/19/19]
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