Governor Lynch, in a fit of impotence and self contradiction, has confused his role as the states chief executive, as reported in a Union Leader column today by Tom Fahey.
In regard to the passage into law of New Hampshire HB 601 and SB 148, Governor Lynch remarked on one hand that…
He allowed the bill (HB 601) to become law, he said, “because I did not want New Hampshire to default into federal oversight.”
and then claimed that…
…SB 148 has no practical effect on New Hampshire residents because there is no way to enforce it.
“ The assessments for not obtaining health insurance will not be administered through the state but through the Internal Revenue Service. Legislators and the public should understand that this legislation would have no impact on the capacity of the state of New Hampshire to block the individual health insurance mandate or the federal assessments for not obtaining insurance,” he said.
HB 601 (in short-hand) prohibits accepting pump-priming federal dollars for Obama Care–which must be returned to lower the federal deficit) and gives the NH legislature oversight of all state agencies on the matter before any part of it can be implemented. SB 148 simply states that we will not enforce any purchase mandate fine or imprisonment related to the Health Care law.
As a matter of semantics Lynch is not wrong to suggest that if the IRS barges in and arrests us for failing to comply that no state agency is interposed to prevent that. But that is exactly the point of SB 148. It deems to interpose the law enforcing branch of the New Hampshire government–the executive and his Attorney General–between (in this case) the IRS and the people on the matter of the Patient affordable care act. SB 148 draws a line over which our chief executive is meant to stand in defense of his state and it’s people. The same line, by the way, that he draws (at least rhetorically) with regard to HB601.
So according to Lynch, while he does not want to default to federal oversight, the IRS can just reach over the Governors office and snatch whomever they please.
Fans of the movie Zombieland might understand the post title right away. In the movie the lead protagonist, "Columbus" has a set of rules he always follows which he believes are the only reason he is still alive after the world is turned into Zombieland by a mutant strain of Mad Cow disease that turns almost everyone into crazed, flesh eating zombies.