New Hampshire-A Banana Republic???

MANCHESTER, NH- John Stephen, Republican candidate for Governor, today blasted the efforts of Governor John Lynch and his Insurance Department (DOI) to absorb the Joint Underwriting Association (JUA) through the rulemaking process. Lynch had planned to take $110 million from the fund, created with private money to stabilize medical malpractice rates, to balance the state's budget for fiscal years 2009, 2010 and 2011. However, in January, the Supreme Court ruled that the state did not have a right to take the money. Since then, Lynch has continued to suggest that, despite the Court's ruling, the state should still be able to take the funds from medical professionals, culminating with yesterday's move to have the DOI take control of the JUA.
"Governor Lynch's bold cash grab of the funds belonging to JUA policyholders is an outrage," Stephen said. "He is ignoring both the Supreme Court's ruling as well as the property rights of the many doctors and nurses who have paid into this fund in his effort to get his hands on this money by any means necessary. This is the type of behavior we would expect from some banana republic like Venezuela, certainly not from the 'Live Free or Die' state. Every citizen ought to be as outraged over Governor Lynch's cavalier attitude and unvarnished contempt for both the rule of law and the integrity of private property rights. We need leaders who respect property rights as well as the rule of law."
Stephen said that New Hampshire voters spoke loudly and clearly about their opposition to government taking of private property with the passage of a constitutional amendment in 2006 that restricted the state's ability to take private land. The amendment received the support of 86% of the state's voters.

"New Hampshire voters will not tolerate the heavy hand of government taking away our private property," Stephen added. "The voters spoke clearly in 2006 that government needs to keep its hands off our property, but Governor Lynch, in his unbridled obsession to get money wherever he can, seems to have missed the voters' message from just four years ago. In November, our citizens will remind him that it is still wrong to take other people's belongings."