Speaking at a Christian college in Iowa, presidential candidate Rick Santorum was asked an interesting question by a student. Citing a study from Harvard University, the student asked if “God appreciates the fact that we have 50 to 100 thousand uninsured Americans dying due to a lack of healthcare every year.”
“Dying?” he countered. “I reject that number completely, that people die in America because of lack of health insurance.”
If Santorum doesn’t like the facts, he just denies them. He then added insult to injury with the standard talking point of blaming the victims:
“People die in America because people die in America. And people make poor decisions with respect to their health and their healthcare. And they don’t go to the emergency room or they don’t go to the doctor when they need to. And it’s not the fault of the government for not providing some sort of universal benefit.”
Santorum displays an amazing lack of Christian morals, as well as a willingness to ignore established facts. This is a sure sign that conservatives are going to ramp up their disinformation campaign against health care reform in the run-up to the 2012 election.
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I who studied the Bible in school and church, see amazing lack of Christian values in people who are ostensibly Christians. Take the fight over calling a Pagan symbol tree a “Christmas Tree”. The list goes on and on and on.
Or the front runner of conservative party GOP, man who asked for his second divorce while his wife was in the hospital. Front runner? I can see that as an old Testament or Muslim value, but Christian?
I’ve determined that in Republicanland, people only ever need medical care for easily treatable situations which require emergency care. In other words, every person who is “sick” just has a broken arm. How else could hundreds of people be, frankly, so unbelievably stupid by putting forth the argument that people can just go to the emergency room because they are required to give you urgent care.
I’d like to ask Mr. Santorum a follow up question: if he didn’t have health insurance and had pancreatic cancer, which of the nation’s fine emergency rooms would he run to in order to pop that bad ol’ cancer right out? Would he be home in time for dinner?
The Republican health plan can be summed up in two words: die quickly. They don’t care about health outcomes, they don’t care about preventative medicine, they don’t care about and even detest health insurance. I don’t really understand why, but it seems as though they’ve taken personal accountability to an incredibly ridiculous level. How is it a person’s fault if they are healthy their whole life, and then are hit by a drunk driver and need surgery? Is that the fault of the victim. Apparently so, according to Santorum.