What about the self-employed?

To the editor:

I was disappointed in the article you published on the Senate Bill 313 Medicaid expansion (“Medicaid expansion is critical for NH,” April 13-26 NH Business Review).

Health insurance for a self-employed person is higher than the average income! It has gone up by 400 percent in five years.

I know now that about half the self-employed are being priced out of their health insurance. That is about 13,000 families in New Hampshire, or some 50,000 people! Nobody cares and you don’t either.

I now have evidence that the state of New Hampshire put the self-employed in the same risk pool as the newly minted Medicaid participants. This is an illegal tax. It is the New Hampshire government who is threating the health and lives of these families.

At the same time, New Hampshire allows catastrophic insurance for low income, but not for self-employed! Why are we no longer equal in front of the law? The government should be shut down in accordance with the New Hampshire constitution if 50,000 self-employed will be priced out of their health insurance.

 Richard Griessel

Derry