Bryan Randolph: Randolph running for state rep to make healthcare easier

To The Daily Sun, 

We need someone who speaks for everyday people in Concord.

Every week in my office, someone asks me a version of the same question: What happens if I get sick and can't afford to fix it?

I've spent more than 10 years as a licensed mental health clinician, sitting with people while they carry that fear. It doesn't come from nowhere. Carroll County is the oldest county in New Hampshire by median age, and nearly half rely on public coverage like Medicare or Medicaid just to see a doctor. Almost a third are on Medicare alone, the highest share of any county in the state.

That's not an abstraction to me. That's the retired contractor doing the math on a prescription. That's a parent waiting weeks for their kid to see anyone about anxiety that's already spilling into school.

And the ground keeps shifting under those families. New state Medicaid work-reporting rules could cause somewhere between 14,000 and 29,000 Granite Staters to lose coverage by 2028, according to the New Hampshire Fiscal Policy Institute. For a lot of people in my district of Moultonborough, Tamworth, and Madison, that's not a policy debate. That means a longer drive to find care, a harder choice at the pharmacy counter, a kid who doesn't get seen until the crisis is already underway.

I'm running for state representative because I believe our Statehouse should be making healthcare easier to reach for the retirees who built this community and for the kids who will inherit it. That's what raising the standard means to me.

If readers are carrying this worry too, I want to hear about it. Email me at bryan@bryan4nh.com, and go to Bryan4NH.com to join me in being of the people who "does something" to make our community better.

Bryan Randolph

Moultonborough