Maine governor: Health reform law not as bad as Holocaust — ‘yet’

Maine Gov. Paul LePage (R) on Thursday waded back into the controversy over his remarks comparing implementation of the administration’s healthcare law to Nazi Germany.

LePage said in a radio address over the weekend that because of the Supreme Court’s decision upholding the reform law, “you must buy health insurance or pay the new Gestapo — the IRS.”

{mosads}Asked about the comments by a reporter on Thursday, LePage said he did not mean to offend anyone by invoking the Nazi secret police, but he did not retreat from the underlying comparison.

“If it shows an insensitivity to them, then I would apologize to them. What I’m trying to say is the Holocaust was a horrific crime against humanity and frankly I would never want to see that repeated. Maybe the IRS is not quite as bad — yet,” LePage said.

The blogger, from a site called Seven Days, asked LePage whether he believes the IRS is “headed in the direction” of killing people. The governor said yes.

“Yeah … you know why? Rationing,” LePage said.

He said the government will end up rationing healthcare under the Affordable Care Act, a charge that congressional Republicans have made before (without Nazi comparisons).

Pressed further by the Seven Days reporter, LePage said “the Holocaust is probably a bad example,” but that “they’re going to be rationing health care, as they do in Canada.”