A Republican New Hampshire state senator, Andy Sanborn, laughingly compared Obamacare to the San Francisco plane crash while guest-hosting a radio show on Tuesday.
Sanborn (R-Bedford) made the comparison between the weekend crash that killed two teenagers and the health care law during a discussion with former state Sen. Ray White (R-Bedford) on WTPL-FM in Concord, N.H., WMUR.com reported. Audio of the exchange, obtained by The Huffington Post, includes more than two minutes of discussion on how Sanborn and White see the Affordable Care Act failing before Sanborn compared the law with Saturday's crash of Asiana Airlines Flight 214 at San Francisco International Airport that injured more than 180 people, some seriously.
“Now that this thing is barreling down on us like a jet landing into San Francisco, it’s (Sanborn laughs) it should make people really concerned," Sanborn said about the Affordable Care Act.
Sanborn first told WMUR.com that he had no memory of making the comment. When the tape was played for him, he said, "If I offended anyone I am sorry."
New Hampshire Democratic Party spokesman Harrell Kirstein described Sanborn's comments as "shameful and appalling" and denounced his apology.
"The half-apologies and lame excuses Sanborn offers up for each successive offensive or shameful comment are now impossible to take seriously," Kirstein said in a statement.
Sanborn earlier this year described Gov. Maggie Hassan (D) as "Haggie" in a tweet he later deleted. Sanborn told The Union Leader at the time that it was a typo. Sanborn is reportedly considering a 2014 race for governor against Hassan.
Sanborn, the chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, was elected to the Senate in 2010 and then resigned his seat to run in another district following last year's redistricting. He was narrowly elected in the new district. His wife, Laurie, currently serves in the state House of Representatives.
Sanborn is the latest in a line of New Hampshire state legislators to make surprising comments. Last month, Republican Stella Tremblay resigned from the state House of Representatives following a series of statements in which she blamed the Boston Marathon bombing on the federal government and questioned if bombing victim Jeff Bauman had really lost his legs in the attack. Tremblay later apologized to Bauman, but said she wanted to visit him in the hospital to check his legs.
Last year, state Rep. Jeanine Notter (R-Merrimack) claimed birth control pills cause prostate cancer during a legislative hearing.
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