December 17, 2013 by David K. Sutton

In A Moment Of Idiocy, Rick Santorum Explains Nationalized Health Care

Rick Santorum is an idiot. There, I said it. I’m not usually so explicit when it comes to critiquing someone’s intelligence, but at least when it comes to the Affordable Care Act, or understanding how a real nationalized health care system works (hence, not Obamacare), Rick Santorum is indeed an idiot.

On Friday Santorum said the following at a Young Americans for Freedom event:

Rick Santorum Drops Strange, Death-Filled Description Of Nationalized Health Care — “If we have a system where the government is going to be the principal provider of health care for the country, we’re done. Because then, you are dependent on the government for your life and your health…When Thatcher ran for prime minister she said — remember this, this is the Iron Lady — she said, ‘The British national health care system is safe in my hands.’ She wasn’t going to take on health care, because she knew once you have people getting free health care from the government, you can’t take it away from them. And the reason is because most people don’t get sick, and so free health care is just that, free health care, until you get sick. Then, if you get sick and you don’t get health care, you die and you don’t vote. It’s actually a pretty clever system. Take care of the people who can vote and people who can’t vote, get rid of them as quickly as possible by not giving them care so they can’t vote against you. That’s how it works.”

Santorum has kept a fairly high profile lately in his opposition to Obamacare, even comparing it to Apartheid when talking about Nelson Mandela. If that wasn’t bad enough, now he is talking about nationalized health care and Obamacare in the same breath. First, Obamacare is not nationalized health care (or socialized medicine). The Affordable Care Act does nothing to change the payment side of health care in America. We still have for-profit private insurance companies running the show. Second, nationalized health care is not a secret plot for one political party to impose tyranny on another political party. If you think that is the goal of Obamacare or any kind of attempt to provide universal health care to all citizens, then Fox News has done as masterful job of “informing” you.

Santorum’s ridiculous doublespeak isn’t supposed to make sense, it’s simply intended to stoke the fire, to continue the nonstop onslaught of right-wing hackery in opposition to the Affordable Care Act. It seems almost daily we see horror show headlines about Obamacare, designed to do the same thing. Santorum is clearly no expert, and if he believes what he is saying, well then he is truly an imbecile on the issue of universal health care. Apparently he believes this is a game. Maybe it’s because many conservatives and Republicans have such contempt for the opposition and the political process. They are so cynical they believe the motives of their opponents are alway about winning the game rather than doing right by the citizens. Universal health care is not a covert political plot. It is what it should appear to be at face value — an attempt to ensure everyone has access to health care when they need it. Leave it to Republicans to attach political calculation as the main driving force behind universal health care, which should tell you something about what motivates those very same Republicans.