2023 Legislative Session

The 2023 NH legislative session has been very busy with many hearings and session days in both the House and Senate during the last four months.
A major focus of this session has been the State Fiscal Year (SFY) 2024/2025 Budget. The House completed their work on the budget (HB 1 and HB 2) on April 6, 2023, on a bi-partisan basis after the House leadership negotiated with House Democrats on a number of key provisions to ensure a strong vote on the House floor. The House Finance Committee removed some problematic aspects of the budget that NHHA opposed. The budget bills were referred to the Senate Finance Committee where the committee members have been working diligently on the budget for the last month. NHHA testified on the budget in the Senate Finance Committee and outlined the key priorities for hospitals. NHHA has been working with Senate Finance Committee members to address an area of continued concern in HB 2: changes made to the Health Care Violence Prevention Commission. In addition, NHHA testified in opposition to the inclusion of Medicaid Expansion in the budget with a two-year sunset. The Senate Finance Committee will complete its work on the budget by late May with a final vote by the full Senate scheduled for June 7, 2023.

Currently, Medicaid Expansion is scheduled to end in December 2023. NHHA is coordinating our advocacy efforts with other stakeholders to ensure that Medicaid Expansion is reauthorized, without a sunset provision, so that the Legislature will not have to come back to reauthorize Medicaid Expansion again and again. We need the Legislature to pass SB 263 to ensure the Granite Advantage program continues without disruption.
While NHHA has been following many bills of interest to our members, the priority focus areas this year have been on Medicaid Expansion reauthorization, the state budget, bills to address workforce shortages, and legislation that will work to alleviate challenges related to discharging patients from hospitals. In addition, we continue to work on workplace safety with the introduction of SB 58, workplace violence protections.
All of the bills that NHHA is following can be found on our web site here which includes links to bill language, the prime sponsor, hearing dates/times and the status of the bill.