Wednesday • November 19 • 2025
Vol.XVII • No.XLVII
Manchester, N.H.
Education Freedom, both the idea and its actual embrace, has seen significant growth in recent years—a result of policy choices by Democrats who hate it. COVID oppression locked kids down and out of schools for months or years – and parents with them putting Ed-Choice on the radar.
This is how it is, they said, to which more parents than ever replied, this is how it was – we’re done with that. The result has been a steady exodus from traditional government schools to charter schools, private schools (both affordable and not), home school collectives, and more of the traditional parent-child version people might picture when asked about it.
New Hampshire added Education Freedom Accounts, which recently survived a legal challenge and has had a number of education freedom options in place for years. Despite these improvements, the state ranked 18th on the Heritage Foundation’s recent Education Freedom Report Card. What killed them?
This will sound familiar—cost per student, results, and administrative overhead. And there is plenty of room for improvement. That said, we are in better shape – according to Heritage, than every other state in New England. While Maine is a disappointing 35th on their report card, Connecticut is 50th (Oregon was 51st), Rhode Island was 49th, Massachusetts ranked 47th, and Vermont 46th (New York was 48th).
We’ll look at Vermont because we like to pick on them and not just because we give a Grok about the state; it dropped 22 spots in one year.
Vermont ranks #46 in overall education freedom in 2023, dropping 22 spots, the largest one-year decline in the country. Vermont declined in every category, most notably a nation’s-worst 39 spots in transparency.
Ouch.
Vermont ranks 50th overall in return on investment (ROI) for education spending. Vermont spends the third-most per pupil among states, spending $22,281 in cost-of-living-adjusted terms annually. Vermont ranks 20th in its combined fourth-grade and eighth-grade math and reading average NAEP score. The Green Mountain State employs 0.75 teachers for every non-teacher in its public schools. Vermont’s unfunded teacher pension liability represents 10.1 percent of its state GDP. Vermont can improve its ROI ranking by lowering per-pupil spending, improving academic outcomes on the NAEP, stopping growth in non-teaching staff, and addressing its significant unfunded teacher pension liabilities.
Everything wrong with NH’s return on investment is worse west of the Connecticut River, and – a wake-up call – NH Dems want that for the Granite State. They are surrounded by bad examples, which they see as things for which they should strive, to hell with parents and students.
And Vermont? They want to be like Connecticut or maybe even Oregon.
The post Education Freedom: NH Ranked 19th While Most of New England is Ranked Worst in the Nation appeared first on Granite Grok.
The politician’s stump speech on how to control private healthcare costs began with the tired bromide that Americans spend 30% more per individual for private healthcare than the rest of the world and had worse outcomes. Fixing the problem required the use of “market forces”.
Transparency was the ticket. Insurance companies should make public the negotiated rates they pay. Hospitals and providers should do the same on what they charge for services. All Americans needed to do was to “shop for the best deal”. The politician opined this would force competition and hospitals/providers would lower their prices.
Pharmaceutical costs had to be controlled, and reining in the middleman pharmacy benefit managers was a must.
Finally came promises of tort reform.
The attentive medical insurance company CEO smiled because the politician had proposed nothing different from the usual Washington DC think tank failed ideas.
We want to thank Jim Betti for this Contribution – Please direct yours to Editor@GraniteGrok.com.
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It remained a mystery why politicians and think tanks could not accept the reason why the cost of American private healthcare has never responded to textbook economic theory. Simply put, Americans want to pay their healthcare premiums and use it when they need it. And they expect the insurance companies to earn their money and take care of the rest.
Price transparency sounds like a good idea, but all it means is the hospitals and providers will discover the highest rates the insurance companies are willing to pay. Armed with this information, the hospitals/providers will then demand top reimbursement rates. In short, price transparency will likely raise costs. The insurance companies will raise premiums to cover the higher costs.
Pharmaceutical pricing and distribution are such difficult issues insurance companies subcontract the service {for massive fees} to Pharmacy Benefit Managers {PBMs}. PBMs negotiate directly with pharmaceutical companies and pharmacies to establish the drug prices and distribution structure. The negotiating process is totally opaque, and since no one outside the PBMs understands it, no politicians or think tanks can figure out how to reign it in. The CEO did not really care because his industry’s massive profits were not affected. They simply increased the premium prices, passing on PBM costs to the consumer.
Tort reform is always promised but never happens. Injury and benefit trial lawyers just get richer.
It was reassuring to the CEO that politicians continued to woo voters with nonviable ideas on lowering healthcare costs. Because the exorbitant cost of healthcare had nothing to do with medicine, it had everything to do with the unholy alliance between five massively influential hunks of money. They go by the medical-sounding names of Healthcare Insurance Companies, PBMs, hospitals/providers, pharmaceutical companies, and patient-protecting trial lawyers. American healthcare is just the product that allows the hunks of money to move funds between themselves and realize massive profits.
In 2022 American private sector healthcare expenditures were approximately 2 trillion dollars. The vast majority of the money enters the system as insurance company {1st hunk of money} healthcare premiums. After the insurance companies take their cut {up to 15%}, the remaining funds are funneled out to the hospitals/ providers (2d hunk of money) and PBMs {3d hunk of money}. PBMs negotiate drug prices with Big Pharm {4th hunk of money} and facilitate any pharmacy transaction. Trial lawyers {5th hunk of money} can be viewed as healthcare parasites. The fear of lawsuits is conservatively responsible for adding a 5% premium to all healthcare costs.
Experts agree we spend 30% more per individual for private healthcare {600 billion yearly} than the rest of the world and have worse outcomes. Each of the big hunks of money understands to keep tapping into these excess dollars, they need to be solid in their unholy alliance. As long as the money flow {premiums} can be increased, the whole system works. The CEO noted the WSJ just reported 2024 Healthcare premiums are moving up 7%, and the average family policy is $24,000. Fortunately for the unholy alliance, the world is focused on Ukraine and Israel. In 2024, the massive profit-gouging will go unchallenged.
The health insurance CEO did have one concern. The five big hunks of money needed to implement a contingency plan before the public/government figured out how to recoup the yearly excess of 600 billion dollars of healthcare spending. Their solidarity would end if the powers in Washington DC could force the big hunks of money to fight each other. The best way to do this would be to control the money flow into the system by limiting the insurance company’s premium increases to inflation minus 1%. And limit the percentage of premiums that could be used as overhead {salary and administration costs} to 10%. The unholy alliance would quickly fracture as the insurance companies forced hospitals and providers to accept lower increases in reimbursement.
To remain solvent, hospitals and providers would have to become more efficient and bring overhead costs down. Bloated salaries and redundant middle management would become part of the past. Pharmacy Benefit Managers actually are a type of drug insurance company and the 10% rule on overhead would also apply to them. The PBMs would factor into their drug negotiations the limited available dollars and the 10% overhead ceiling. The economic reality that the money available to purchase drugs was not unlimitedly expandable would force pharmaceutical companies to lower their prices. The trial lawyer parasites could be easily dislodged by instituting loser pays. If trial lawyers find themselves personally accountable for frivolous lawsuits {Canada and Europe}, they will quickly disappear into the hole at the bottom of the wall.
The Healthcare System would come to equilibrium, and future healthcare costs would be controlled.
The CEO knew this could not be allowed to happen. The unholy alliance needed to be preserved. Hospital systems, PBMs, and insurance companies needed to get bigger. Hospital systems needed to merge, and PBMs could be either bought by insurance companies or vice versa. The pharmaceutical companies and the trial lawyers would continue their massive Washington DC lobbying efforts.
Just like the 2007 Wall Street banks, the healthcare hunks of money would become too big to fail and have massive political influence. And in times of stress, cowardly politicians would line up to throw billions at the unholy alliance.
And yet, the canny CEO knew the system was not sustainable and would eventually collapse, leading to a government-run healthcare system. A system lauded and praised by the powerful elites because they knew they would never have to use it.
A new market for private hospitals and doctors was only billions of venture capital dollars away. Rich folks would pay the inflated premiums. Private hospitals and doctors would have no more money losers. Obamacare, blue-collar folks, no-pays, Medicare, and the Medicaid welfare crowd would all be herded into the government healthcare corrals. The five hunks of money would be back in business, flush with our money.
Since 2010, the US healthcare industry has consolidated into huge hospital networks. The insurance industry has done the same, merging with PBMs. Big pharm and the trial lawyers are two of the largest K-street lobbyists. Watch out, America, because the chess pieces are in place, and the end game is coming.
This publication is the first of a two-part series dealing with the ghost of private healthcare insurance’s past, the present, and its likely future. The 2d piece will drop next week.
The post Flush with Our Money. The US Healthcare System has Never Cared Less. appeared first on Granite Grok.
Earlier today, Windham Selectman Bruce Breton formally requested the resignations of Windham Moderator Peter Griffin and Windham School District Moderator Elizabeth Dunn to resign their positions due to continuing, egregious errors related to the November 3, 2020 election and September 13, 2022, State Primary election.
His written request is copied below.
Subject: Formal Request for Your Resignation of Town Moderator & School District Moderator
Dear Mr. Griffin & Ms. Dunn,
I am writing to formally request your resignation from the position of Windham Town Moderator and Windham School District Moderator, and for both of you to publicly pledge that you will no longer participate in any of the processes that govern Windham’s elections.
As you are both aware, Ms. Dunn has also acted as Windham’s Assistant Town Moderator in every Windham election for many years, and both of you have equally shared the town’s election responsibilities during that time.
My request for your resignations is based on your inability to follow election laws and procedures, and therefore, your inability to provide accurate election results.
My concerns are confirmed in the joint report by New Hampshire’s Secretary of State Bill Gardner and Attorney General John Formella. Their official findings of their comprehensive investigation, analysis and conclusions regarding the November 2020 General Election in Windham was delivered to you on January 7, 2022. Their report exposed significant deficiencies in your collective inabilities to follow simple election laws and procedures. Their damning report identified unconscionable failures that included the disenfranchisement of voters whose votes were not counted. This is unacceptable.
Even more egregious is your continued disregard of New Hampshire’s election laws and procedures, as demonstrated by your inability to accurately document and report the results regarding the September 13, 2022 Primary Election.
I have read the complaint regarding the September 13, 2022 Primary Election that was submitted to New Hampshire Attorney General John Formella, and it is clear that the enormous errors and discrepancies that are identified in the complaint were all avoidable if you simply followed New Hampshire’s election laws and procedures that have been put into place.
The latest complaint provides dozens of indisputably egregious errors regarding inaccurately reported election results, inaccurately reported number of actual voters on election night, and inaccurately reported number of cast ballots. All of these, and more, are documented on the signed official election forms that you are responsible to complete and sign.
Your documentation, on official election documents prove your inability to accurately reconcile our elections. Your reported documented results are historically inaccurate. They include:
These are just a few examples. The complaint identifies 33 individual issues. ALL of the errors that are identified would have been caught had you simply followed the procedures that are outlined in the Election Procedure Manual.
Instead of taking responsibility of your errors and the seriousness of the complaint that was filed with the Attorney General, Ms. Dunn publicly dismissed the complaint as “background noise”.
With the First In The Nation Primary upon us early next year, it is of utmost importance that the public’s trust in Windham’s elections be restored and maintained – and that election laws and procedures are properly followed to ensure that every vote and ballot is accurately tabulated and accounted for in every election. You have proven you inability to do so on multiple occasions.
The continued pattern of egregious issues that have been documented for the last two federal elections has compelled me to request your resignation from your positions of Windham Moderator and Windham School District Moderator.
Please consider this request with the seriousness it entails. It is not background noise. As a Windham Selectman, I have an obligation to protect the rights of all Windham voters to have their voices heard accurately and fairly, without any concerns regarding failures to follow the law.
Respectfully,
Bruce Breton
###
Contact Information:
Bruce Breton
sqrd55@yahoo.com
603-475-9634
Release Date: 11/13/2023
The post Windham Selectman Bruce Breton Calls for Election Official’s Resignations appeared first on Granite Grok.
Inspired by an article about the recent elections in Virginia, it occurred to me that the same criticism could be made about the New Hampshire elections of 2022 or the recent special election loss in Rockingham County.
One local Virginia race, in particular, appeared to be typical of the Virginia Republican approach.
Gibson was flooding the airwaves (and YouTube and social media) with ads that emphasized three things: abortion, abortion, and abortion. She took the approach favored by extreme Democrats: “MAGA Republicans” wanted a 100% ban on abortions, “a total abortion ban, no exceptions,” “women and doctors in jail,” even “women [are] facing the death penalty for having an abortion.”
Owen’s response? Crickets. His ads can best be described as pablum for the masses. He assured us that he was for bringing us together and better-paying jobs. He wants better education and an end to divisive politics. No doubt he also supports motherhood and apple pie. His ads gave no details of how he would achieve these general goals and nary a word in response to the tsunami of fear-mongering abortion ads that Gibson was running, including on Fox News during prime-time morning hours.
Neither Owen nor anyone in his campaign gave any indication that they had the slightest inkling that abortion might be a key issue for thousands of suburban women who were being bombarded with Gibson’s ads. So, to my knowledge, he never responded to them or even attempted to discuss the issue.
That same “pablum for the masses” approach is what we saw three months ago in the Rockingham special election here in New Hampshire. The GOP had no message. The Democrats had a message. We can’t fight something with nothing.
In politics, if we don’t define ourselves, the Democrats will define us. If we don’t define the Democrats, they will define themselves.
And that is what happened in the 2022 State Rep races. The NH GOP advised our candidates to ignore all social issues and just keep talking about the bad economy. Democrats defined us as extremists. We didn’t even try to define them as the real extremists.
The truth is that the Republican position is much closer to the mainstream than the Democrats’ position. Overwhelming majorities (70%-22%) oppose third-trimester abortions. Strong majorities (55%-37%) oppose second-term abortions. The majority also oppose taxpayer funding of abortions.
Law professor Glenn Reynolds points out that European laws are similar to the Mississippi law that was upheld in the Dobbs Supreme Court case. “More than 20 European nations ban abortion after 12 weeks. In Britain, a woman named Carla Foster was recently sentenced to prison for procuring an abortion at 32-34 weeks.”
The Democrats’ support of abortion all the way to the moment of birth and their support of taxpayer funding of abortion are extremist positions. But do you hear Republicans campaigning on this issue?
Republicans need to:
1) Actually talk about abortion, not ignore it, and hope the issue goes away.
2) Attack the pro-abortion side as extreme, favoring abortion right up to the moment of birth (and even beyond), and favoring taxpayer funding of abortion.
3) Defend our position (e.g., a 15-week limit) as mainstream.
4) Not push for more restrictions on abortion – until the culture catches up. We risk all that we have gained if we try to go too far.
The post Night Cap: Abortion Is Not a Losing Issue for Republicans – But Ignoring the Abortion Issue Is a Losing Strategy appeared first on Granite Grok.
The Climate zealots of Agenda 2030 have presented to the world devious plans dressed up with nice words in 17 basic goals. If only we surrender our liberties to total global government control, these goals will save the earth from climate change.
Behind this masquerade presented as inevitable truth is the fraudulent science taught to our youth in public schools since the 1970’s. This generational campaign of fear has become a confrontational ideology of hate to divide and conquer. The technique is extracted from the same Marxist laboratory that Karl Marx created in his 1848 Communist Manifesto.
Do you really believe that Agenda 2030, sponsored in Congress by a former bartender, New York Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, as the Green New Deal, is a sincere and good plan to save the earth? Perhaps we can forgive a former bartender for not knowing the difference between mixing drinks and mixing private property with socialism. Yet, are we to believe the majority in Congress and the Executive branch are so ignorant that they do not know that mixing these two opposites is an explosion that will destroy liberty? Ignorance or betrayal, the result is the same. The ramifications of which must be avenged at the ballot box by American voters.
The prime targets of Agenda 2030 in all 17 categories can be summed up as mandating controls in place of free enterprise, individual choice and private property ownership. Let’s dissect goal number 1: End poverty in all forms everywhere. It’s a noble purpose, but it is about as accurate as calling the UN a peace organization. Guess where the funds will come from? Just as the United States funds approximately 20% of the UN budget, get ready to share more of your productive wealth with the world by force to end all poverty. Marxists, as you know, like to divide the wealth. Ostensibly ending all poverty is a scheme that fits like a glove, as if Marx was the tailor who designed it to “abolish private property.”
The proposal follows for “equal rights to economic resources.” Essentially, they claim absolute power over anything that belongs to you so they can give your wealth to someone they deem is deserving. If theft committed by an individual is a punishable crime, then theft by a global entity or any government agency is also a crime. The only recourse you have is to get involved and study the Constitution, which forbids all this global abuse of power. Contact Matthew Rhodes, New England Coordinator of The John Birch Society JBS, to learn about attending a six-part seminar called The Constitution Is The Solution at 207-391-0970. That freedom shall not perish; educate yourself in the proven track record of the JBS, the voice of liberty since 1958.
The post Devious Plans Dressed Up With Nice Words appeared first on Granite Grok.
Imagine you run a daycare. It’s big business, and the state gives you a big bucket of money for each kid you watch. You don’t even watch the kid as much as you should, and sometimes they get exposed to things they shouldn’t, but you still get paid to “watch” them.
Then, one day, some parent says, I’d like my kid to go to some other daycare, but I can’t really afford it. Is there any way I can use some of the money the state takes and gives to the Big daycare to help me do that? The big daycare puffs up its chest and says no frikkin way, but there are other “daycares,” and not everyone fits into the Big Daycare model. Some upstart legislators pass a law that would allow it, and while the Big daycare and its advocates are unhappy, there’s really no reason for this.
The kid they used to “watch” is no longer their responsibility, but they still get most of that big bucket of money. The parent only gets a portion of it under the law, leaving much of it in the hands of the big daycare. In other words, they get a bunch of money to do nothing multiplied by however many kids go somewhere else. This irks them so much that they file lawsuits demanding that the courts end the law so that they get all the money, even if it means they have to “watch” the kids again.
At this point, you would be right to wonder why. How are free money and no kid less of a good deal than having that kid, their nosey parent, and whatever grievances they have?
I’d say it’s not about the money, but that’s not true. Part of the issue is that Big Daycare – in this example – doesn’t want anyone else thriving at their expense, even if they are getting revenue free of any individual upon whom they are “meant” to spend it. Letting even that little bit go creates or supports competition, but competition for what? It’s not the rest of the money, so it has to be the kid. Or, more precisely, to what the child is exposed.
They want the money, but they want the child more.
This is a battle for your children’s minds and the ideological effects of keeping that money away from people who have different ideas about what children see and learn.
Not every parent wants their child to think they were born racist and have no path to repentance (CRT). They oppose access to sexually explicit material either on religious or mental health grounds, knowing young children, unable to understand it, might be disturbed or confused by inappropriate images and mixed messages. Some parents would prefer a more rigorous academic curriculum, especially if their child is being held back by a system obsessed with mainstreaming less capable young minds.
Or it could be as simple as the government schools’ inability to teach kids to read and do math, even to the watered-down testing, no matter how much money they get.
The public education experiment is failing, has failed. It didn’t have to, doesn’t have to continue failing, but that’s the path they are on.
If it weren’t for the government’s almost police-state-like monopoly and that tax-based revenue stream, results be damned, they’d have gone out of business and been replaced years ago by something that works at a fraction of the cost.
But here we are, watching them cry about money for students they don’t have and always demanding more of it.
The post Libs Crying Over Free Money appeared first on Granite Grok.
