Top lawmakers join in backing taking

Kevin Landrigan reports in the Nashua Telegraph on the Amicus Brief filed last week by Democratic legislative leaders in the JUA Lawsuit.

Among the legal arguments was the assertion that taking the money from the Joint Underwriting Association was not simply to balance the two-year state budget but to preserve state programs that make health care more accessible.

Lawyers for Lakes Region Hospital, Derry Medical Center and Dr. Georgia Tuttle had characterized using the surplus as a “money grab.” “There is nothing superficial about what is at stake, and that it can be asserted the public policy interests involved are more than merely financial ones,” Frydman wrote.

Senate Republican Leader Peter Bragdon, of Milford, saw no point in GOP opponents of this JUA move preparing their legal arguments.

“There are plenty of capable parties making our assertion we first made early on that taking this money was in violation of the state Constitution,” Bragdon said.