Granite State needs support, not scorn, Mr. President

It is disappointing that President Trump would dismiss New Hampshire, in a conversation with Mexico President Peña Nieto, as “a drug-infested den.”

It is true that New Hampshire is suffering, as all states are, from the national opiate crisis. We’re a small state, which has made the impact even more traumatic. But to define our state by substance misuse is no more accurate than Trump’s bizarre claim, in that same conversation, that he won our state on Nov. 8. 

{mosads}Nor is it true heroin flowing from Peña Nieto’s Mexico is our worst problem, as Trump asserted. Instead, it’s synthetic opiates like Fentanyl manufactured in China.

And what evidence is there that Trump even cares about this crisis? His draft budget proposed eliminating 94 percent of the Office of National Drug Control Policy’s budget.

In New Hampshire, policymakers of both parties have supported Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act. Trump’s failed efforts to repeal, and replace, the ACA would have rolled back this expansion and decimated access to drug treatment.

Our Republican governor, Chris Sununu, rightly told the president “we are facing this challenged head on.”

“The president is wrong. It’s disappointing his mischaracterization of this epidemic ignores the great things this state has to offer,” Sununu said in a statement. 

Sununu also wrote in a June letter opposing the U.S. Senate’s Better Care Reconciliation Act, “Our Medicaid expansion has been one of the primary tools to combat our opiate crisis.” He noted that more than 23,000 New Hampshire residents had received substance use disorder treatment through Medicaid since 2014.

Beyond opiate misuse, New Hampshire is also one of the nation’s five healthiest states. We would invite Trump to leave his golf cart behind and take in the scenic views, and clean air, while hiking in our White Mountains, which boast the highest peak, Mt. Washington, east of the Mississippi River.

The president would also be welcome in any of the nursing homes that I represent — all of which would likely have closed had the Senate ObamaCare repeal bill passed and, as Gov. Sununu noted, robbed our state of over $1.4 billion in federal Medicaid funding over the first decade alone. Medicaid is the source of funding for over three-fifths of nursing home residents. New Hampshire has the nation’s second-oldest population, and seniors — who are very diligent voters — would be interested in hearing the president’s thoughts on the Medicaid safety net so many must turn to.

We are proud in New Hampshire to have the nation’s first primary. It has had a way of surprising incumbent presidents, whether it was the stunning 1968 success of Sen. Eugene McCarthy that pushed President Lyndon Johnson into early retirement, or the vulnerability President George H.W. Bush showed in 1992 when conservative commentator Patrick Buchanan ran a close second. Now that Granite Staters know what the president really thinks of us, we will look forward to delivering our opinion of him in 2020.

Brendan Williams is the president/CEO of the New Hampshire Health Care Association, which represents 90 long-term care facilities. Williams is also an attorney, former Washington state deputy insurance commissioner and former Washington state representative. 

The views expressed by contributors are their own and are not the views of The Hill.