Susan Smith: Only some reps have courage to vote in readers' best interests

To The Daily Sun,

Reps. (oxymoron) Harry Bean, Steven Bogert, Russell Dumais, Lisa Freeman, Juliet Harvey-Bolia, Thomas Ploszaj, Paul Terry, Travis Toner and Douglas Trottier voted to repeal the New Hampshire Vaccine Association (NHVA) despite irrefutable information and written testimony from knowledgeable, educated and reputable people and an overwhelming number of residents voicing opposition.

Obviously these nine legislators don't care that eliminating the NHVA means:

• Many children will lose access to vaccines that prevent illness and potentially life threatening diseases
• Less children will receive these important preventative vaccines
• Unvaccinated children will expose their daycares, schools, families and contacts, including those who are immunocompromised or susceptible to the diseases these vaccines prevent
• Children may suffer lifelong effects from contracting a preventable disease
• Loss of productivity and work time for those who care for a sick child or become ill from exposure to an unvaccinated child
• Cost to our already strained health care system as people need to seek care and potentially hospitalization
• Overwhelming our health care providers with responsibility for purchasing, billing and maintaining immunization inventories for their pediatric patients
• Some providers will be unable to bear the burden and subsequently stop providing vaccines
• Loss of $72 million plus in state revenue and general fund costs of $394,000 over the next three years

Clearly, repealing the NHVA doesn’t save the state money; doesn’t improve efficiency in state government; doesn’t promote health and wellness; it doesn’t help our overwhelmed and understaffed healthcare providers. So why would they vote for this?

This is just one of many pieces of legislation that's detrimental to our health and wellbeing. Let these legislators know that they were elected to represent us and not be cowardly, self-serving sycophants of the misguided and dangerous Republican leadership agenda.

Reps. Mike Bordes, Matt Coker, Sheri Minor and David Nagel are to be applauded for their courage to vote against this legislation in readers' best interests.

Susan Smith

Gilford