New Hampshire
College football: New Hampshire falls to Rhode Island in CAA play
KINGSTON, R.I. – The University of New Hampshire football team lost to the University of Rhode Island, 38-27 on Saturday, Oct. 11 at Meade Stadium.
UNH sophomore quarterback Matt Vezza completed 16 of 32 passes for 193 yards and two touchdowns. He also had 16 rushes for 54 yards. Grad student Chase Wilson had five catches for 69 yards, including a 20-yard TD.
UNH is now 3-4 overall and 1-2 in the Coastal Athletic Association. URI is now 5-2 overall and 3-2 in the CAA.
·New Hampshire visits Campbell on Saturday, Oct. 18.
TWIN MOUNTAIN, N.H. (WWLP) – A Pittsfield man was arrested in connection with sexually assaulting a minor in New Hampshire on Thursday.
New Hampshire State Police stated that on Thursday, 47-year-old Eric Isaac of Pittsfield and Hillsdale, N.Y., was arrested in Twin Mountain. An investigation had determined that Isaac reportedly sexually assaulted a minor in Coos County. The victim and Isaac knew each other.
Isaac was charged with two counts of felonious sexual assault. He was arraigned in Lancaster District Court on Friday.
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This past summer, one of Dr. Amy Boutwell’s patients needed an imaging test done, but Lahey Hospital and Medical Center, which is down the road from her practice in the Boston suburb of Lexington, Mass., told her it would be a five-month wait.
“And I said, ‘Gosh, there’s got to be a better way,’” Boutwell said. “The question that came to my mind was, ‘Isn’t there some sort of independent imaging center where I don’t have to send her through the big, expensive, and busy health care system?’”
Her search turned up nothing nearby in Massachusetts. But located 30 miles north, just over the state line in Nashua, she found Tellica Imaging. She learned the newly opened independent imaging center could take her patient the next day and at a much lower cost. It worked out so well, she began sending more patients there. Boutwell’s status as an independent doctor made it possible. Doctors working in big health systems, she said, typically send patients to the imaging facilities within their own system.
“We live in Metro Boston. We’re used to using large health care systems,” Boutwell said. “This patient might have said, ‘I know and trust the health care infrastructure of Massachusetts,’ but instead, I think it’s really telling in this day and age, patients want access. They want transparency around pricing. They want easy and convenient. Of course, we need to know that the quality is going to be high and trustworthy. But for me as a doctor, and for my patient, in this case, we both were really compelled by, ‘It’s quick and it’s easy and it’s inexpensive,’ so let’s go to New Hampshire.”
For the longest time, Boutwell was perplexed as to why she couldn’t find centers like Tellica closer to her.
“I just thought, how’s it possible here in the medical mecca of the world, I don’t have an independent imaging center?” Boutwell said. “And I didn’t really know why.”
Many point to a primary culprit: “certificate of need” laws, which require health care providers to seek permission from state regulators for any new services they’d like to provide.
Under the laws, providers must prove to regulators that any new proposed services are necessary. Certificate of need laws also allow would-be competitors to weigh in and contest applications by arguing they already offer the service and, as such, a new provider is unnecessary.
The laws have been in place in some states since the 1960s, but the 1974 National Health Planning and Resources Development Act mandated every state institute them. Proponents believed the laws would restrain health care costs, increase quality, and provide better access to care for traditionally underserved communities. However, many experts in the field argue they’ve done the opposite. Congress repealed its federal certificate of need mandate in 1986, but 35 states, including Massachusetts, still have the laws on the books, according to the National Academy for State Health Policy. The laws vary based on what types of care are subject to the laws and how the process works.
New Hampshire is the only New England state without certificate of need laws.
Dr. Jeffrey Gold, a direct primary care physician in Salem, Mass., is another Bay State doctor who sends patients to independent New Hampshire imaging centers. He said Derry Imaging, which is roughly 45 miles away from his practice, might charge around $700 for an MRI. However, Gold said that at one of the large health systems in Massachusetts, such as Mass General Brigham, “you’re shooting a dart in the wind.” He said a patient won’t know exactly what they’re being charged until after the MRI is complete. In some cases, Gold said, once insurance and the health system finish negotiating the patient could be asked to pay roughly $1,500 (while insurance pays another $1,500).
Gold provides a unique type of care called direct primary care, where patients pay a monthly fee out-of-pocket for unlimited access to his services. He said this allows him more time with patients and to consider patients’ costs, among other things. He often advises patients to go to independent imaging centers in New Hampshire, even if their insurance won’t cover it, because paying Derry Imaging out-of-pocket is often cheaper for patients with high-deductible insurance policies. Though he notes he can sometimes get good prices at private orthopedic centers for some services, those facilities are increasingly being purchased by larger health systems.
In Massachusetts, Gold argues certificate of need laws have constrained the free market because when big health systems like Lahey and Mass General already offer imaging, it makes it harder for smaller providers to prove their services are needed. However, New Hampshire repealed its certificate of need laws in 2016 and so this phenomena hasn’t occurred here.
Indeed, analysis from the Mercatus Center, a think tank based at George Mason University, estimated in 2020 that Massachusetts nonhospital providers would’ve likely performed 80,388 MRIs annually if the state had no certificate of need laws as opposed to the 58,960 it did perform. The organization also estimated that without certificate of need laws, nonhospital providers would’ve performed 758 PET scans as opposed to 420. The researchers found no statistically significant change for hospital providers, suggesting the laws could be protecting hospitals from competition. The analysis estimated that, across all services subject to certificate of need laws, annual health care spending would’ve fallen $320 per capita without the laws.
“Neither theory nor evidence suggest that CON (certificate of need) laws work as advertised,” researcher Matthew Mitchell wrote in a 2024 report in the academic journal Inquiry. “While advocates for the regulation have offered several rationales for its continuance, the balance of evidence suggests that the rules protect incumbent providers from competition at the expense of patients, payors, and would-be competitors.”
In New England, this has created an interesting dynamic. Patients in southern New Hampshire often travel to the Boston area for treatment at larger hospitals. However, as costs and wait times rise in Massachusetts, doctors say it makes sense to go the opposite direction for certain services. Boutwell said the “cost of care in Massachusetts and access to care in Massachusetts is at an all time high and an all time low.”
“This is not a story of people who can’t afford care going to New Hampshire,” she said. “With the classic cycle of people from the north coming into Boston, you might think, ‘Well, maybe people who are price sensitive will be people who don’t have access, you know, people who don’t have the money.’ But in this case, we’ve got all the benefits of who we are, and we’re making an educated choice to say, ‘You know what? Let’s go to New Hampshire.’”
Mass General and Lahey declined to comment.
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EAST LANSING — After dropping its first game of the season by surrendering a goal with 5.2 seconds left on Thursday, second-ranked Michigan State hockey was able to get back on the right track with a 2-0 victory over New Hampshire.
Star MSU goalie Trey Augustine had one of the easier shutouts of his life, only needing to stop 13 shots all game.
Michigan State (1-1-0) also got multi-assist games from Porter Martone and Charlie Stramel. The goals came from captain defenseman Matt Basgall and Patrick Geary.
First Period
The start felt eerily similar to Thursday’s game. Michigan State controlled the puck for a good portion of the first period, but the Wildcats (1-1-0) continued to throw themselves in front of pucks with glee as the Spartans struggled to find real opportunities to score.
Ten minutes into the game, UNH had six blocked shots to MSU’s zero. At the end of the first period in a 0-0 tie, shots on goal favored Michigan State, 12-4, but blocked shots were 11-2 in favor of New Hampshire.
Martone had three shots on goal and one blocked shot across the first 20 minutes.
Second Period
It was more of the same as the middle 20 minutes began. When the Munnsters in the corner of Munn Ice Arena started the “Halftime!” tradition of singing the fight song with 10 minutes left in the second period, both teams still had zeroes on the scoreboard. A shot from Michigan State’s Martone had rang off the right post just 10 seconds of game time prior.
The Spartans got their first power play opportunity with 9:22 left in the period, but UNH was able to kill it off without MSU ever seriously threatening.
Finally, with 5:48 left, Michigan State captain Matt Basgall was the one to sneak one past New Hampshire goalie Kyle Chauvette on the Spartans’ 19th shot on goal of the game. Charlie Stramel and Martone received assists. The score held at 1-0 through the end of the period.
Third Period
About two and a half minutes into the final period, Michigan State got a big second goal to give itself some more breathing room. Once again involved, Martone was behind the net and fed a nice pass to the junior defenseman Geary, who was easily able to punch it in while skating close to the net. Stramel picked up the secondary assist.
MSU had another power play chance a few minutes later, but the Wildcats were able to reach 2-for-2 on the penalty kill.
Still, the Spartans remained in full control. When New Hampshire’s Reid Conn received a five-minute major penalty for cross-checking with 7:43 to go in the game, the shots on goal read 36-11, in favor of MSU. Stramel took a tripping penalty only 11 seconds later, but nothing materialized for either side during the 4-on-4 segment.
The score held from there, as the Spartans were able to earn their first victory of the season. MSU’s next series will be at No. 3 Boston University on Friday, Oct. 17 and Saturday, Oct. 18.
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