Should also probably be mentioned that NH is one of the most educated states in the country by percentage of adults with a college degree (8th highest in the nation).

Trump performs poorly with white voters with college degrees relative to other Republican candidates historically (even compared to his own performance among college-educated white voters in 2016 he lost support in 2020), and it seems like GOP candidates who associate themselves closely with Trump also perform poorly with them: https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2020-election-swing-state-biden-trump-coalition/?leadSource=uverify%20wall

Which is a bad combination for a pro-Trump Republican candidate in NH since there are a lot of white college-educated voters in NH. A more moderate Republican like Sununu doesn't suffer from the same issue and can win in NH fairly easily.

If you're going 70 and the person in front of you is going 60, then you still need to pass them and it's fair to pass in that situation. You should try to time it so you aren't cutting off someone in the passing lane to do so, but sometimes you pull out and are passing and then someone comes up out of nowhere at 90+mph and you're stuck for a little bit.

Those people cruising at 90mph in the passing lane aren't using it correctly themselves.

>in addition, i am tired of mega speeders tailgating me when i am trying to pass a car. some people just feel like they own the road and there's no point arguing with them...

Right, this is my pet peeve with all this.

I do use the left lane as a passing lane, but way too often I find myself passing someone at say 72mph (they are going 65), and then someone roars up behind and is tailgating me all pissed off because they want to go 90.

Yes, it's a passing lane, but that doesn't mean people there are allowed to go 90 just because they are passing. These people probably say "he was sitting in the passing lane!" But I really wasn't intending to, it was just taking me 30 seconds to pass someone because personally I'm not interested in going 90 just to pass.

This is the website for the actual Health Connector: https://www.mahix.org/individual/

You should really try applying on there. The ACA subsidies have been expanded to go up to 400% FPL so if you are under 400% FPL you can qualify.

More info on the cutoffs: https://www.kff.org/health-reform/issue-brief/explaining-health-care-reform-questions-about-health-insurance-subsidies/

Why not go on Medicare? You are over 65 and are therefore eligible. If your wife's insurance sucks I'm not sure why you'd want to stay on it over going on Medicare.

I've seen them on the NBPT/Rockport line at rush hour times, but it's true that they aren't used often.

The benefit is that if dental insurers do this they will actually have to cover far more services than they currently do. Most dental insurance barely covers anything other than routine things like cleanings so it is largely pointless. If they raise premiums, they will have to cover more expensive procedures in order to hit the 83% of revenue spent on dental care threshold. Otherwise they will just have to refund the excess premiums to consumers.

If property taxes are bothering you, then sure, move to a town with lower property taxes. The idea that only Lowell or Lawrence have lower property taxes is ridiculous, I live in a nice town with pretty good schools and the property taxes seem much more reasonable than yours. My house would have to be assessed at $900k (and assessments always lag the actual market, mine is assessed at ~$150k below market rate) to be paying >$10k annually property taxes, in which case I would be comfortably upper middle class so I'd have a hard time complaining.

Otherwise, you just seem mad about stuff that isn't specific to Massachusetts, so no idea what to tell you there.

I agree that paying for failing southern states is frustrating, but that's a federal taxation issue, really nothing MA can control.

As for our state taxes funding things like MassHealth, ConnectorCare, etc. it's hard to complain about that as they are valuable programs that help people and make MA have the lowest uninsured rate in the nation. A welfare state isn't about "how can I personally benefit", it's about helping people who need help. I think our state could and should continue to improve its welfare state so it helps more people, but it's already more extensive and helps more people than in most US states.

Either way, my initial point was simply that complaining about taxes in a state with very average taxes seems a bit silly. There really aren't that many states with noticeably lower taxes than MA. The middle 30 or so states are roughly the same as MA and there are 10-15 that are noticeably higher. So maybe 5-10 states total where the difference is actually noticeably lower. If someone wants to move to one of those states, that's fine, but it's hardly like MA is New York and is leading the nation in tax burden.

I mean that's very dependent on what town you live in, property tax is set by the municipality, not at a statewide level. I don't pay anywhere near double digit thousands annually, my property tax rate would have to double to hit $10k annually.

Our tax burden is roughly average for a US state: https://wallethub.com/edu/states-with-highest-lowest-tax-burden/20494

21st in the nation and only 0.58% of income above Texas, which is often thought of as a "low tax" state.

I mean, the "metric" they are measuring here is just how often people in a state Google terms like "depression."

This stuff isn't exactly a scientific study...

Wow, Californians are moving to Vermont? Kind of surprises me. I thought they would mostly just go to Montana, Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, Oregon, etc. if they wanted mountains and cheaper CoL.

I guess California is so big that even if most are going to states like that, even a few thousand going to a small state like Vermont could feel meaningful.

No, that's not embarrassing, I agree that some of the smaller towns in VT actually have nice little walkable downtowns. Brattleboro is definitely included in that.

The issue is more that those downtowns are quite small and once you get outside of them the walkability drops off completely as it generally becomes immediately rural. For some people that's fine, but I like density and being able to walk around more than just a small downtown area, so even though I enjoy visiting these places I'm not sure I could live in them.

I have a similar issue with coastal Maine outside of Portland. I love a lot of the coastal towns, and they often have great little downtowns, but that's it for the walkability and they are basically small islands of walkability all separated from each other.

It hardly seems like a proper measuring standard no matter the context. Just googling a term doesn't mean someone suffers from that term.

It depends on your situation and what you want from where you live. Vermont is beautiful and I love the hiking and outdoor options there. That said, I'm not sure I could personally live there outside of Burlington as I really value walkability and basically nowhere in VT has that to the level I need other than Burlington (even then you're in an isolated island of walkability).

Vermont also has high cost of living for a rural state, and unlike MA it doesn't have the high-paying jobs of a major metro area. Remote workers making high wages probably have easy lives in VT, it's probably harder and more stressful for people working for lower wages in a high cost state where there aren't tons of job options.

The cost of living is high there for a rural state, and yet it doesn't have particularly high wage jobs given it is rural. Just one possibility that comes to mind.

That's not what my life is like here at all, with all due respect it sounds like you need to step back and take a deep breath for your own sanity.

I would hardly classify traffic announcements on the highway as being that intrusive, just don't read them if it bothers you that much.

Most of what you say regarding social issues, politics, etc. just sounds like modern social media/internet culture, not specifically Massachusetts culture. I find that overwhelming too sometimes, and it's probably best to spend less time online if you feel like you are overwhelmed by that stuff as honestly I don't have anyone trying to aggressively talk to me about politics in real life, just online. And that is hardly a MA-specific thing, it's an internet thing.

No, we absolutely aren't. Just in New England alone, New Hampshire is way more Florida-y than MA (Live Free or Die could practically be Florida Man's motto, maybe sub "or" for "and"), as is Rhode Island and parts of Maine.

> too much conversation about everything

What? If anything people in MA and New England are pretty reserved. If you think small talk is bad up here, don't go to the Midwest or South, you have random people coming up and chatting with you all the time there.

MA is indeed the least religious state in the country (tied with New Hampshire): https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/02/29/how-religious-is-your-state/?state=massachusetts

Somewhat of a different metric than highest percent of atheists, but arguably more useful of a metric as it demonstrates how important (or unimportant) religion is in a state. Hypothetically a state could be 40% atheist but the other 60% could be very religious.