by Ed Naile
New Hampshire’s legislative money junkies and their governor need another fix.
Ah, NH’s Tax and Spend Democrats, where will they get mo munny if they can’t rob the doctors of their private Joint Underwrites catastrophic insurance buffer. (See, it doesn’t pay to squirrel some cash away for a rainy day, even in private business, with progressives at the helm of government.)
It was probably too much to ask the liberal legislature to spare from their spending spree private funds resting in private accounts doctors were forced to put away in case of large medical malpractice lawsuits.
Politicians (many of them are lawyers) were just making sure the public was protected from lawyers suing helpless doctors for huge medical damages, and that plenty of money would be available for everyone just in case that happened.
What a coincidence! The NH Legislature and Governor Lynch want that private money NOW through the back door by appropriating it like it was some sort of line item in their diminishing revenue stream.
Me, I would go another route. I know where there is a whole basket of money which actually used to belong to NH citizens. And it is sitting in several bank accounts waiting for Governor Lynch and the tax and spenders to gobble it up.
Ready?
$100 million was the original amount of NH citizen’s cash which was transferred from a NH non-profit when it changed into a for-profit business, to a new NH non-profit.
Ring a bell?
How about – Endowment for Health?
Remember how in 1999 when Blue Cross Blue Shield went all “Anthem” on us and the State of New Hampshire brokered a deal where some assets, $100 million or so, were tucked into this Endowment for Health non-profit?
Here is my logic:
BCBS was a non-profit – tax exempt organization which paid little to no taxes on its business in NH. That means NH taxpayers paid more in taxes than if BCBS was a for profit company. So BCBS would have some level of debt to NH taxpayers throughout its years in NH.
When BCBS non-profit assets were converted to a for-profit, Anthem, the State of NH entered the deal creating Endowment for Health with funds that could have conceivably gone back to ratepayers in some fashion or maybe into a fund to offset state expenses – you know, taxes.
But along comes Endowment for Health and the endowment’s knight in shining armor, former State Senator Jim Squires who runs the organization.
And now for the big coincidence:
Jim Squires is a liberal, income tax loving Republican from Hollis who, besides running Endowment for Health as his own liberal fiefdom, free of any real government oversight, is a key player – or should I say pleader, involved with some progressive organization running around NH offering workshops talking about “fair” taxation.
“Fair” taxation is liberalspeak for any broad-based tax you can think of.
So if Senator Jim Squires really wants to inject some much needed cash into the greedy mitts of his pals in the NH Legislature all he has to do is hand his bank account over to them.
Do the right thing Jim! They won’t waste it. And the money wasn’t really yours in the first place.
What a deal!
Doctors get to keep the private money THEY put away to pay for lawsuits and NH taxpayers get a break they gave to a non-profit which went out of business.
(Other states, like California, have used converted BCBS funds when they overspent their budgets. Since liberal NH Democrats and Governor Lynch are following the “California Budget Model” I think this is a great idea.)
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Ed Naile is the Chairman of the Coalition of New Hampshire Taxpayers