New Hampshire House Bill HB1784

New Hampshire 2026 Regular Session

• Introduced: 12/17/25
• Refer: 12/17/25

Caption

relative to the health care consumer protection trust fund.

Summary

HB 1784 revises the administration of New Hampshire’s Health Care Consumer Protection Trust Fund, which receives money tied to settlements, judgments, or other resolutions involving health care organization acquisition transactions. The bill keeps the fund in the state treasury and continues to allow the attorney general to administer it, but it removes the requirement for Executive Council approval of expenditures while retaining approval by the advisory commission and the governor. The bill also narrows how trust fund money may be used. It bars grants or contracts to New Hampshire state agencies or instrumentalities, including through subgrants or pass-through arrangements, and limits spending to projects that directly benefit New Hampshire health care consumers through defined, measurable patient-outcome objectives. Eligible projects must include baseline measures, target outcomes, reporting, audit rights, milestone-based disbursements, and clawback provisions if milestones are not met. The bill further prohibits use of the fund for academic research, while allowing incidental evaluation needed to verify outcomes for otherwise eligible projects.

Impact

HB 1784 would amend RSA 7:6-g to impose more specific restrictions on the use of Health Care Consumer Protection Trust Fund dollars and to change the approval process for expenditures. It would shift the expenditure approval structure away from Executive Council involvement and toward the governor and the advisory commission, while also directing the attorney general to administer the fund under tighter statutory criteria. The bill would also prohibit funding to state agencies and state instrumentalities, restrict pass-through funding, and define allowable projects and prohibited academic research in greater detail. These changes would primarily affect the Department of Justice, grant recipients, and any entities seeking trust fund support for health-related consumer protection projects.

Sentiment

The bill appears to be framed as a consumer-protection and accountability measure, with its emphasis on measurable outcomes, direct services, and limits on research and state-agency pass-throughs suggesting support for tighter oversight of settlement-related funds. The fiscal note indicates the Department of Justice expects additional administrative burden and potentially significant staffing costs to implement the new compliance requirements, which suggests some institutional concern about the bill’s operational impact. No committee transcript or vote record is provided, so overall legislative sentiment cannot be measured from recorded debate, but the introduced text reflects a policy preference for more targeted and outcome-driven spending.

Contention

The main points of contention are likely to be the bill’s restrictions on how trust fund money can be used and who can receive it. Prohibiting grants or contracts to state agencies, and barring subgrants or pass-throughs to those entities, may be controversial for agencies or policymakers who prefer broader flexibility in distributing settlement proceeds. Another likely issue is the ban on academic research, which could be viewed as limiting potentially useful public-health or policy studies in favor of direct service delivery. Finally, removing Executive Council approval while retaining gubernatorial and advisory commission approval changes the oversight structure, which may raise questions about executive control, checks and balances, and administrative efficiency.