Business, Taxpayer Groups Speak Out Against SB 128’s ‘Stealth Tax’

A proposal to fund a new state health care bureaucracy with what critics are calling a stealth fee or tax is setting off alarm bells in Concord.

Groups ranging from the Business and Industry Association to Granite State Taxpayers are declaring their opposition to SB 128 , aimed at funding a new children’s behavioral health bureaucracy. They’re particularly concerned because the proposal has not been considered by the House, but has been stuck into the state budget by the Senate.

“This bill is an attempt to create more bureaucracy and regulation that will impact everyone who pays insurance,” said Executive Councilor John Stephen.

Buried inside the Senate’s budget proposal, SB 128 is the result of a study that sought to identify gaps in coverage for children’s behavioral health serv